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GENERAL SULLIVAN 

NOT A 

PENSIONER OF- LUZERNE 

(Minister of France at Philadelphia, 1778-1783). 



With the Report of the New Hampshire Historical 

Society, vindicating him from the charge 

MADE BY George Bancroft. 



0/ 



SECOND EDITION. 




4. 



BOSTON- '^ 



A. WILLIAMS AND COMPANY, 

283 Washington Street. 



-^ 187.5 ^/c^ 



Z 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 

JOHN \V1LS0N AND SON, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



In presenting to the public another edition of the vindication 
of General Sullivan from the charge that he was a pensioner 
of Luzerne while delegate in 1780 and 1781 to the Continental 
Congress from New Hampshire, we are glad to present the 
report of the Historical Society of that State sustaining the 
position taken by his descendants and kinsmen that the charge 
was not only not proved, but was alike inconsistent with his 
whole career, public and private, with what was known of his 
situation and conduct at the time, and with the evidence offered 
by his maligner. The committee appointed by the society in 
June to inquire into the justice of the charge submitted their 
report, understood to have been drawn up by their chairman, 
also president of the society. It was subscribed by the other 
members of the committee, and, duly accepted by their asso- 
ciates, has recently been printed in their publications. 

The committee consisted of members peculiarly competent 
to weigh the evidence and come to a just conclusion, from their 
familiarity with the history of the revolutionary epoch, and 
especially with what concerned the part taken by their own State 
and its representatives in affairs within and without its limits. 
The high estimate placed upon their character and qualifications 
for the duty imposed cannot be gainsaid, and the conclusions 
they have reached, after thorough investigation, are entitled to 
confidence. The evidence pretended for the charge being in a 



4 

foreign language, and the facts and circumstances to be consid- 
ered of a nature which demanded fuller information than even 
those generally familiar with American history possess, only a 
tribunal so constituted was competent to come to a decision 
which precluded the possibility of misapprehension. 

The descendants of General Sullivan, however justly aggrieved 
at this outrage upon the memory of an ancestor, from the share 
he took as a leader in the civil and military incidents of the 
Revolution, their most precious heirloom, have refrained from 
any act or expression of resentment, in the hope that, when 
all was stated and substantiated proving the injustice of the 
charge, it would be as publicly withdrawn as it was publicly 
made. Our law, unlike that of some other countries, provides 
no reparation for wrongs of this nature ; but this omission 
does not lessen their claim to the amends which every man 
of honor or any pretension to the respect of his fellow-men 
is under obligation to make. If by an inference, shown to 
be wholly without foundation, he has been misled into 
wounding the just and reasonable susceptibility of the family 
and kinsfolk of one he has misrepresented, the part of honor 
is to retract : to persist is to cover himself with infamy. 

They may trust to the candor and justice of their fellow- 
countrymen for retribution of so great a wrong if suffered to 
go unredressed, but they certainly ought not to neglect any 
measures which will prevent such an imputation attaching to 
his memory. The statement heretofore published is again 
presented, and to it is now appended the report alluded to, of 
the Historical Society of New Hampshire. Making every effort 
to give it the widest circulation in their power at home and 
abroad, they hope, if it does not induce the historian to retract 
his charge, it will prevent historical students of the present and 
all future generations from believing it. 



GENERAL SULLIVAN NOT A PENSIONER 
OF LUZERNE. 



For historical students, familiar with the events of our war 
of independence and the character of its leaders, reference to 
the early life or subsequent career of General Sullivan may not 
be requisite for our present purpose. To the public generally 
such information in regard to both is indispensable, for any 
thorough understanding of the questions which it is proposed 
to consider. It is certainly with no wish to parade his claim 
to grateful acknowledgment from his country, that this brief 
review of the part which he took in the struggle for national 
existence, is presented. With his countrymen generally, he did 
his best to make that struggle a success, according to his abili- 
ties and opportunities. But, when unjustly assailed, whoever is 
interested in his memory is not only entitled, but under solemn 
obligation, to vindicate it from undeserved reproach. 

His father came to this country, in early manhood, to seek 
an asylum from arbitrary rule at home. Having enjoyed the 
advantages of a liberal education, he long devoted himself at 
Somersworth in New Hampshire, and at Berwick in Maine, to 
the instruction of youth. His life was prolonged to the great 
age of one hundred and five, his death occurring in 1795. Of 
his six children, four took an active part in the revolutionary 
contest. The eldest, an officer in the English navy, died before 
the war broke out. Daniel resided at Sullivan in Maine, on 
Frenchman's Bay near Mount Desert. James early acquired 



6 

reputation at the bar, and, at the age of thirty-one, was ap- 
pointed, in 1776, Judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, 
for sixteen years he was its Attorney-general, and, when he died 
in 1808, Governor of that State. Ebcn, also a lawyer, rose to 
the rank of major in the continental army, serving with dis- 
tinction. From the only daughter, Mrs. Hardy, descended the 
late Governor Wells of Maine, and John Sullivan Wells of the 
United States Senate from New Hampshire. 

John, the third son, and subject of this memoir, born in 
1740, was carefully educated by his father, and, after a voyage 
to the West Indies, entered the law-office of Judge Livermore 
at Portsmouth. His success in his profession placed him early 
among its leaders in his native State. By his earnest and elo- 
quent denunciations of parliamentary encroachments on the 
chartered rights of the province, and spirited contributions to 
the public press, he attracted attention and became popular. 
He early exiiibitcd a taste for military science, was familiar 
with all the great historical battles, and, holding from 1772 
the rank of major under the crown, he drilled his neighbors 
in successive squads and companies, until they became efficient 
soldiers. 

He was sent to the first continental Congress, in September, 
1774, as representative from New Hampshire. He drafted at 
least one of its important papers, took his share in its de- 
bates, and, in opposing the motion of Dickinson for another 
appeal to the King, with an eloquence eliciting high praise 
from John Adams. When at home in December, he participated 
in the attack on the fort near Portsmouth. The powder and 
arms captured were removed, at his charge, to Durham, 
where they were concealed under the pulpit of the church 
opposite his dwelling, and subsequently used at Bunker Hill. 
Returning to Congress, he was appointed one of the eight brig- 
adiers who with Washington, in July, took command of the 
army engaged in the siege of Boston ; his brigade and that of 
General Greene forming the division of General Lee at Medford 
and Charlestown, which constituted the left wing of the Amer- 
ican army. He was twice sent to Portsmouth to fortify and 



protect that place from British cruisers ; and when, in January, 
the withdrawal of tlic Connecticut troops, whose term of enlist- 
ment had expired, imperilled the safety of the army, his influ- 
ence and earnest appeals brought down from New Hampshire 
two thousand men to replace them. 

After the evacuation of Boston by the British, in Marcli, 
1776, General Sullivan marched his brigade by Providence to 
New York. Despatched thence to Canada, he extricated the 
army, seven thousand in number, prostrate with disease and 
beset by greatly superior forces, from a position threatening its 
destruction ; receiving from his officers, amongst whom were 
many of the most distinguished in the subsequent campaigns, 
high commendation for his services. At Long Island, now 
Major-General, with Lord Stirling and MacDougall for his brig- 
adiers, he commanded on the left of the outer line in the 
battle, where, after contending, as well as circumstances per- 
mitted, for three hours, with twenty-two thousand British and 
Hessians, Lord Stirling, who gained great honor on that day 
for his defence on the right, and himself were taken prisoners. 
With the approval of General Washington, he submitted to 
Congress Lord Howe's overtures for negotiation. Exchanged 
for General Prescott, he rejoined the army in season to take 
part in the masterly movements in West Chester to bafiBe 
General Howe in his efforts to take our troops at disadvan- 
tage. Howe withdrew to New York, sorely pressed by Sulli- 
van, who, for his services on the occasion, received in general 
orders the acknowledgments of the Commander-in-chief. 

After Lee was captured, on December 13, 1776, as next in 
command Sullivan marched his army to join Washington, and 
with him, Christmas night, crossed the Delaware through the 
ice. After a night's march, in command of the right wing, he 
entered Trenton at eight in the morning at the head of his 
troops. Rahl, the Hessian commander, was mortally wounded, 
and nearly a thousand prisoners were taken. A few days 
later, at Princeton, Sullivan drove the fortieth and fifty-fifth 
regiments from the town. During the rest of the winter, in 
front of the American lines at Morristown, he kept vigilant 



7 



8 

watch over the movements of the enemy, checking their marauds 
and confining them within their entrenchments. 

Whilst waiting the following August for intelligence of the 
movements of Howe, who had quitted New York and sailed 
south with a large portion of his troops, Sullivan, learning 
that several regiments lay exposed along the shores of Staten 
Island, planned an expedition to capture them. He ordered 
Colonel Ogden to cross at the old Blazing Star tavern with two 
regiments to surprise Colonel Lawrence ; Smallwood and De 
Borre at Halstead's Point to attack Colonel Barton, and Bus- 
kirk at the Dutch church. Ignorant or treacherous guides 
led astray some of the columns in the darkness of the niglit, 
and, although many prisoners were captured, the result fell 
short of expectation. A court of inquiry, composed of Stir- 
ling, Knox, and MacDougall, decided that the expedition was 
eligible and well concerted, and would have succeeded but for 
accidents not to be foreseen or prevented, and that the con- 
duct of General Sullivan, in planning and executing the expe- 
dition, deserved the approbation of the country and not its 
censure. Their judgment was confirmed by Congress. 

Four days after the descent on Staten Island, Howe landed 
on the Chesapeake at the head of Elk River with nearly twenty 
thousand troops. Sullivan proceeded without delay to join 
Washington on the Brandy wine, thirty miles below Philadel- 
phia. He was posted in command of the right wing, com- 
posed of liis own division under De Borre, Stirling's and 
Stephen's, on the north bank up the river, with Hazen's regi- 
ment still higlicr up ; W^ashington, with Greene and Maxwell, 
lying lower down, opposite Chad's Ford. On the eleventh of 
September, Howe was at Kennet Square, seven miles from 
the river, and, whilst Knyphausen made a feigned attack on 
Maxwell, marched his army through dense woods in a thick 
fog, and, crossing above the forks, where Hazen was stationed, 
came down the north bank a!)out two in the afternoon. 

Sullivan instantly proceeded with his own division to join 
Stirling and Stephen, who, being nearer head-quarters, were 
earlier notified and already in line. The three divisions, hardly 



9 

five tlioiisand strong, boldly contested the ground for two hours 
against thrice their numbers, " fifty-five minutes nearly muzzle 
to muzzle." De Borre's division had been headed off by the 
enemy in their approach, and some confusion resulted from his 
not obeying orders ; but the battle was hotly contested, and the 
loss that day sustained by the enemy, as shown by rolls captured 
at Germantown, exceeded two thousand.* When the riglit 
wing, that bore tlie brunt of the conflict, finally gave way, 
Sullivan, taking command of Weeden's brigade, joined Greene, 
who had come up double quick from below, and the battle con- 
tinued till nightfall, Sullivan having his horse shot under him. 
The retreat of tlie army was effectually secured and the enemy 
discouraged from pursuit. 

Five days later, the two armies were confronted at Goshen ; 
but an engagement was prevented by a violent storm, and Howe 
proceeded on his way to Philadelphia. Mr. Burke of North 
Carolina, who had gone out to see the battle, hearkened to 
the prejudiced accounts of persons hostile to S^iiUivan, and in 
Congress spoke disparagingly of his course. Whereupon his 
companions in arms, Laurens, Hamilton, Lafayette, and all 
whose opinions were of value, bore willing witness to his cool- 
ness, courage, and judicious dispositions througliout the day ; 
and he was entirely exonerated by Washington from another 
charge, that of want of vigilance in learning earlier the approach 
of the enemy. Mr. Burke later acknowledged his mistake. 

No suitable accommodation being found for the British 
troops in Philadelphia, they were encamped six miles out, at 
Germantown. The American army left Matuchin Hills at nine 
on the evening of the third of October, for a night-march of 
fourteen miles to attack them. Sullivan commanded the right 
wing, Greene the left. The former reached Chestnut Hill at 
daybreak, and, attacking the advanced posts, drove them back, 
and, pushing on nearly two miles below the Chew House, he 
encountered the left wing of the British, and a severe conflict 
ensued. Ordering his troops to advance, when the moment 

* Tins English habit of understating loss sustained by them in battle of life 
or limb is as old as Cressy, Athenry, and Hallidon Hill. 

2 



10 

arrived, the enemy broke ; making a stand, however, wherever 
ground or wall permitted. Sullivan sent word to Washington 
of his success, and requesting that Wayne should be ordered 
forward to attack the enemy's right ; General Greene, who 
had a larger circuit to make, having been delayed. A British 
force had taken possession of the Chew House, which was of 
stone, and Washington and Knox had halted there to reduce 
it, but even artillery made little impression upon its solid 
walls. Sullivan was still pushing on, when, Wayne being 
ordered back to the Chew House, his left flank became ex- 
posed to the enemy, who were rallying in large numbers. The 
morning was foggy ; and, in tlie obscurity from this cause and 
the smoke of the battle, Stephen's division fired upon Wayne's. 
The troops, in their three hours' combat, had expended their 
ammunition, when an alarm that they were surrounded created 
a panic, and the army retired with victory in their grasp. They 
made good their retreat with little loss. Washington, in his 
report to Congress, accorded high praise to General Sullivan. 
Among the killed were his two aids. White and Sherburn. 

During the ensuing winter, Sullivan remained at Valley 
Forge engaged in building a bridge over the Schuylkill. In 
April, he was placed in command of the department of Rhode 
Island. France had taken a deep interest in the strife between 
Enuland and her colonics. Some vexation throughout all classes 
of the nation was natural at the loss of Canada; there were seeth- 
ing, besides, in the popular mind sentiments in sympathy with 
resistance to oppression, and thus both king and people favor- 
ably inclined towards the colonies in their strike for indepen- 
dence. Aid was secretly extended, arms and money furnished ; 
and, after Bennington and Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga, in 
October, 1777, France recognized our existence as a nation, 
and, in February, signed the treaty of alliance, offensive and 
defensive. The welcome tidings reached Providence a few 
days after Sullivan's arrival there, and were celebrated with 
fitting expression of the general gratification they afforded. 
In July, D'Estaiug, with twelve ships of the line and four 
frigates with four thousand land troops on board, after a 



11 

long voyage of eighty-seven days, arrived off the coast. The 
Britisli had evacuated Philadelphia, sustaining a serious dis- 
comfiture if not an actual defeat at Monmouth, in traversing 
New Jersey, and were already concentrated in New York, when, 
on the eleventh of July, the French fleet reached Sandy Hook 
with intent of attacking the place. Not finding it practicable 
to cross the bars or pass the batteries that guarded the channel 
up to the city without pilots, it was concluded that D'Estaiug 
should co-operate with Sullivan against Newport, the garrison 
of which was re-enforced on the seventeenth to the number of 
seven thousand men. Sullivan, receiving information of the 
final decision on the twenty-third, lost no time in carrying out 
the instructions of Washington. By earnest appeals to the 
neighboring States, with fifteen hundred men from the main 
army, he collected together in two weeks nine thousand men, 
not very well armed and with little experience in war, only 
fifteen hundred of whom had ever been in action. He had with 
him, however, Greene, Lafayette, Cornell, Varnum, and Glover, 
all able and experienced general officers ; and Crane, Gridley, 
and Gouvion, distinguished engineers. 

On the thirtieth of July, D'Estaing arrived off Point Judith, 
and Sullivan went on board to concert measures of co-oper- 
ation. Two vessels were sent without delay round Conani- 
cut to capture three regiments on that island, but they were 
at once withdrawn. Three other vessels were sent into the 
east passage to cover the crossing of the American troops, 
and three British vessels of less force stationed there were set 
on fire and destroyed ; and, on the fifth, five other frigates in 
the west passage were burnt or sunk. On the eighth, D'Estaing 
forced the main or middle passage and moored opposite the 
town, but behind Rose and Goat Islands; and on that day, 
the troops expected by Sullivan arriving from Boston, and 
Butt's Hill, which commanded Howland's Ferry on to the 
island, the best place for crossing, being evacuated, Sullivan, 
on the ninth, crossed over with a large portion of his army, 
leaving at Tiverton a certain number which it had been 
proposed should join D'Estaing under Lafayette, who • that 



12 

morning proceeded to the fleet with information of what had 
been done. 

The French troops were already partly in the boats, partly 
ashore on Conanicut, whence, near Lawton's Valley, they were 
to cross on to the main island, when an English fleet hove in 
sight. ]>ro time was lost in re-embarking the men and making 
the necessary dispositions for action. D'Estaing could not tell 
but that Byron, at the time expected daily from Europe, was 
there as well as Howe. The north wind springing up the next 
morning, he went in pursuit ; but the storm on the twelfth dis- 
persed both fleets, dismasted two of tlic French ships, and when 
D'Estaing came back on the twentieth it was to inform Sullivan 
he must go round to Boston to refit. The Americans were not 
in strength to attack the place without aid from the French ; 
the road was now open for re-enforcements and for the English 
fleet to intercept their crossing; and three thousand volunteers 
went off" on the twenty-eighth. No alternative remained but to 
withdraw to the north end of the island, which was eflected that 
night. The next day took place what Lafayette pronounced the 
best fought battle of the vfav, between equal numbers, five 
thousand on either side : the British loss, according to the best 
accounts, exceeding a thousand killed, wounded, and prisoners.* 
As officers and men alike did their duty, it would be out of place 
to ascribe to the general in command any particular credit : it 
belonged alike to them all. Next day, Clinton arrived with 
five thousand British troops; but Sullivan, who had despatched 
Lafayette to Boston to induce D'Estaing to come down by land, 
had learned that this was not practicable, and already crossed 
back to the main. At a subsequent page, in another connec- 
tion, reference will be made to otlier incidents in the Rhode 
Island campaign, for the purpose of correcting erroneous 
impressions with regard to them. 

In 1779, little could be attempted. The French fleet was in 
the West Indies. The resources of the country were com- 
pletely drained, and the English seemed indisposed to be 
active ; but General Sullivan at the head of a force of nearly 
* See note, page 9. 



13 

four thousand men entered the Indian territory to retaliate for 
the massacre of Wyoming, and by burning their villages and 
plantations to deter the Indians from molesting our fi'ontiers. 
The only encounter with them Avas at Newtown, which they 
speedily evacuated. Fatigues and exposures on this expedition 
undermined the health of General Sullivan; and, warned by 
his pliysician, he sent in his resignation, and in December left 
the array. 

The following letter of Washington shows the estimation iu 
which he was held by his Commander-in-chief; who, with 
Greene, Lafayette, Stirling, MacDougall, Stark, and many 
of the noblest leaders in the war were ever his steadfast 
friends : — 

" It is unnecessary for me to repeat to you how high a place you 
hold in my esteem. The conlidence you have experienced, and the 
manner in which you have been employed on several important occa- 
sions, testifj'' the value I set upon your military qualifications, and the 
regret I must feel, that circumstances have deprived the army of your 
services. The pleasure I shall always take in an interchange of good 
offices, in whatever station you may hereafter be placed, will be the best 
confirmation of my personal regard." 

As he was recovering from dangerous and painful illness he 
was chosen to Congress from New Hampshire, and for rea- 
sons hereafter stated declined ; but, yielding to the earnest re- 
quest of the Committee of Safety, finally consented. He went 
to Philadelphia in August, 1780, and remained a year. We 
have reserved for a ditferent connection the account of tbe 
service he there rendered to the cause. He labored zealously 
and unremittingly to do his part, and the journals and his corre- 
spondence show with what effect. Some of the older members 
would have preferred that affairs should have been still ad- 
ministered by committees ; but heads of departments were 
substituted, and for this and other important . reforms he 
exerted his influence. He was proposed as a candidate for 
the war department ; but he had no wish for the office, even 
if his independent course had not precluded the likelihood of 
his election. 



14 

The next few years, as Attorney-general of New nampshire, 
an office held by himself, son, and grandson for half a century ; 
as Major-general, in which function he made the military force 
of tlie State, twenty thousand men, effective by a system of drill 
and discipline, important from its nearness to the frontier, and 
as renewal of the war was at times anticipated ; as Speaker of the 
Assembly and Chief Executive of the State, to which position 
he was thrice chosen ; as President of the Convention to ratify 
the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, brought about, it was 
said, mainly by his influence and efforts ; as one of the most 
energetic in putting down the rebellion of 1786 ; as doing what 
he could to introduce manufacturing industry into the south- 
east section of the State, now one of its busiest centres in the 
world ; and in performance of his duties as Federal Judge, — 
he did whatever was in his power to develop the country, shape 
its institutions, and promote its welfare. 

He died comparatively young, — at tlie age of fifty-four, — 
of disease contracted by exposure in the war, at his home in 
Durham, which remained that of his widow till her death in 
1820. With this brief sketch of the leading events of his life, 
the reader will be better able to appreciate tlie injustice of 
seeking to attach to his memory the reproach proposed by his 
calumniator. His extensive correspondence, contributions to 
the press, when, as candidate for office, he refuted every charge 
brought against him, though this particular charge that he was 
a pensioner of Luzerne, never was dreamt of, acquaint us with 
every important incident of his public career, financial condi- 
tion, and traits of character. Prejudice and ill-nature may be 
safely challenged for proof or reason to believe that he was other 
than upright and honorable in all his dealings, otherwise than 
faithful to every obligation. It seems difficult to account for 
the perversity that, without one particle of evidence, can con- 
strue a simple loan of three hundred dollars, such as he had 
made himself to others, and certainly to one French officer 
not repaid for many years, into any indication of corrupt 
motive. 

From this brief sketch of the leading incidents in his career. 



15 

our readers will be better able to understand the nature of the 
charge now for the first time brought against his integrity, and 
to judge if in the utter absence of any evidence to prove it there 
is the slightest probability or possibility of its being true. It 
will now be stated, and appeal is made with entire confidence 
to the candor of the public, if the actual circumstances warrant 
any such imputation. 

In the tenth volume of the History of the United States, 
recently published, is found, at ymge 602, the passage, " That 
New Hampshire abandoned the claim to the fisheries was due 
to Sullivan, who at the time was a pensioner of Luzerne." * 
Why Sullivan opposed making the concession of the fisheries 
a condition of peace was explained by himself in 1785. In 
the canvass for the presidency of New Hampshire from 1781 to 
1789, in three of which years he was elected, John Langdon 
being his competitor, whatever could be said with any plausi- 
bility by their respective partisans to the prejudice of the 
opposite candidate, after the fashion of the times was improved 
to influence the result. His vote on the fisheries was not 
overlooked, and became subject of comment in the public press. 
In explanation of the reasons which governed him in his vote, 
he says that the general instructions to our ministers respect- 
ing the fisheries remained the same as they were first formed 
before he went to Congress in August, 1780. Independence 
was the great ultimatum, and the general instructions directed 
the negotiators to secure our right of fisheries on the banks. 
Whilst in Congress Franklin, Jay, Jefferson, and Laurens were 
added to Adams as commissioners of peace. It was moved, in 
the course of the debate on their powers, that the fisheries 
should be made an additional article of the ultimatum, which 
he opposed, as it was already included in their general instruc- 
tions, and he thought it unwise to fetter ministers who could 

* The passage, page 452, "tliat, with the aid of Sullivan of New Hampshire, 
who was in the pay of France, instructions sucli as Vergenncs might have 
drafted were first agreed upon," needs no other answer than that made to what 
is quoted in the text. As to the fislieries, the instructions were not changed 
wliilst Sullivan was in Congress, and it would have been folly and breach of 
faith to propose terms to which France or Vergennes objected. 



16 

better judge what could be judiciously insisted upon. To quote 
his own language : — 

" With respect to the second charge, I can only say, that the general 
and secret instructions to our ministers respecting the fishery remained 
the same as they were first formed, years before I went to Congress 
in 1780. The secret instructions made the independence of the tliirteen 
United States, and every part of them, — the grand ultimatum of a 
peace; and the general instructions, among other things, directed them 
to secure our right of fisher}'' on the banks. 

" Wlien I was in Congress, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, Governor Jeffer- 
son, and Mr. Laurens were added to Mr. Adams. New instructions 
were framed, but no alteration made respecting the fishery. It was 
indeed moved by a member that the fishery should be made an addi- 
tional article of the ultimatum, to whicli I, among others, objected, 
and thought our general instructions to our ministers on that head 
were suflicient to show the wishes of Congress ; that their own incli- 
nations would prompt them to use every possible effort to secure it ; 
and that it would be dangerous for Congress, at so great a distance, 
who could not possibly know the disposition of the European powers, 
to dictate positively the articles of peace, and thereby fetter ministers 
who, in my opinion, had as much zeal for the American interest, and 
had more knowledge of what we could or could not obtain, than all 
Congress together. Besides, let the articles agreed to, be as they 
mififht, they could not be binding on Congress until ratified by them. 
Every person must know that the capture of General Lincoln and his 
army was owing to the positive orders of Congress to keep possession 
of Charlestown. 

" And I confess myself to be one of those who had rather trust the 
command of an army to a good general on the ground tlian to a 
Congress at five hundred miles' distance ; and the making a peace to 
five of the greatest characters in America than to a Congress at three 
thousand miles' distance ; especially as, after all, Congress could 
approve or disapprove, as they tliought proper. 

" There never was a question in Congress whether the fishery should 
be given up ; and if there had, I should have been the last man in 
America to have yielded it to Britain ; but I could not see the neces- 
sity of making it an additional article in our ultimatum. Our right to 
fish on Jaifrey's Ledge, and off Boon Island and the Isle of Slioals, were 
not articles of the ultimatum, yet we were never in danger of losing it. 



IT 

" When the instructions * Honestus ' alludes to were made out, great 
part of New York and Virginia, and the whole of Georgia, were in 
possession of the enemy ; we were without money, our paper currency 
had vanished, and our army was revolting ; a change against us, even 
before our instructions arrived, was at least possible. Had Arnold's 
plan succeeded ; had Greene been defeated in the South ; had Wash- 
ington been unsuccessful against Cornwallis ; had the French fleet 
been blocked up in the Chesapeake by tlie British ; had Britain 
obtained a "decisive naval victory over our allies ; had Russia and 
Germany, or even the former, declared in favor of Britain, we might 
have been compelled to accept terms less favorable than we obtained. 
Either of those events was possible ; and yet our ministers obtained 
not a single point but what they were instructed to insist on. But as 
the events of war were uncertain, I acknowledge, and glory in the 
confession, that I was one of those who objected to fettering our min- 
isters, and positively to dictate orders of peace, to five gentlemen who 
were in my opinion, more than equal in the business of negotiation to 
all the members then on the floor of Congress." 

Jay was of the same opinion as himself, and enough more to 
defeat the motion, and leave the commissioners under their 
general instructions, which covered the fisheries as finally 
conceded in the articles. 

The statement implies that he was influenced in his vote by 
being a pensioner of Luzerne. All that has been transmitted 
of that minister renders it improbable that he ever sought to 
tamper with the integrity of members of Congress. It could 
not well have escaped detection if he had, and would have led 
to his disgraceful expulsion from his post. What his char- 
acter and conduct were may be gathered from the following 
biographical' notice of him. 

Born in 1741, after having served in the seven years' war, 
in which he rose to the rank of colonel, he abandoned the 
military career, resumed his studies, and turning his views to 
diplomacy, was sent in 1776 envoy extraordinary to Bavaria, 
and distinguished himself in the negotiations which took place 
in regard to the Bavarian succession. In 1778 he was appointed 
to succeed Gerard as minister to the United States, and con- 
ducted himself during five years he remained with a prudence, 

3 



18 

wisdom, and concern for their interests that gained liini the 
esteem and affection of the Americans. In 1780, when the 
army was in the most destitute condition, and the government 
without resources, he raised money on his own responsibility, 
and without waiting for orders from his court to relieve the 
distress. He exerted himself to raise private subscriptions, 
and placed his own name at the head. In 1783 he returned 
to France, having received the most flattering expressions of 
esteem from Congress, and in 1788 was sent an ambassador 
to London, where he remained till his death in 1791. When 
the Federal Government was organized, Jefferson the Secretary 
of the State by order of Washington made Luzerne an express 
acknowledgment of his services, and the sense entertained of 
them by the nation. 

As the proceedings of Congress were with closed doors, the 
proposition to couple two such incongruous and disproportion- 
ate matters in the ultimatum of negotiation as independence 
and the fisheries was too inappropriate to be anticipated, 
and Luzerne could not have been present either to dictate or con- 
sult. The insinuation of the historian, that General Sullivan 
opposed it or voted against it in accordance with his wishes, or 
in requital for the loan, is simply absurd. The motion cer- 
tainly deserved to be voted down as it was, and not only Jay, 
but many members of unquestionable wisdom, integrity, and 
unswerving devotion to the interests of their country, voted 
with him. New Hampshire, neither by that vote nor by any 
other, ever abandoned the fisheries, for they were in the general 
instructions with boundaries, indemnities, and like points for 
negotiation. To couple them with independence in the ulti- 
matum would have turned a solemn proceeding into a jest. 

Besides what advantage could it have been either to France 
or Spain, that their inveterate enemy and rival should retain a 
monopoly of her fisheries, — both Catholic lands, peculiarly 
dependent on a plentiful supply of their Lenten food. Even 
during the war American fishermen went freighted to their ports 
with the treasures of the sea, which were to prove an important 
equivalent in the new markets opened to them here by national 



19 

gratitude for tlieir commodities of silk and wine. The fallacy 
of the statement of the historian is sufficiently obvious to who- 
ever is conversant with what it signifies ; but, to readers not as 
familiar with the actual condition of affairs, an erroneous im- 
pression may be conveyed. It is enough to say that, as this is 
the only instance cited or evidence advanced of any act or 
word that could have been influenced by the loan, the charge 
is not only unsustained, but words fail to express the enormity 
of this attempt, with such an entire absence, of proof, to tarnish 
the memory of one of our patriots, ever honest and honorable 
in all his transactions public and private, to the great distress 
of his descendants. 

General Sullivan when in 1774, at the age of thirty-four, 
elected to the First Congress, was busily occupied in his pro- 
fessional pursuits. Mr. Adams, in June of that year, mentions 
in a letter to Mrs. Adams, in speaking of General Sullivan's 
success at the bar, that he was said to have already accumu- 
lated by his practice and judicious investments, ten thousand 
pounds, represented by farms and seven mills, which were his 
delight and profit. From the rapid depreciation of the cur- 
rency and unavoidable expenses attending the war, whatever 
available resources he had were exhausted, and when with 
shattered constitution he left the army, December, 1779, after 
five years' constant exposure, he was sore pressed, as his lands 
were unsalable, for means to provide for his wife and children. 
He says in 1785 that he had never received but the nominal 
sum in paper for his services, being the only officer in Amer- 
ica who had received no depreciation or allowance therefor. 
There was due to him when he resigned, as back pay, thirty 
months' allowance as commander of a separate department 
and for money advanced, in all five thousand dollars, no part 
of which was paid him before September, 1781, after he had 
been a year in Congress. Although fifteen hundred dollars 
was then voted him for the advances he had made, not wishing 
to take what was needed for the pressing needs of the country, 
he received only two hundred in cash from the treasury. The 
rest was paid in a draft on New Hampshire, whi'ch was not 
realized by him till some time after. 



20 



Ho lifid hardly left the service, recovered from illness in- 
duced ])y his late campaign, and resumed his practice, when he 
was again elected without his knowledge as the representative 
in Congress from his State. From a sense of obligation to his 
family, he declined, but urgently solicited by the Committee 
of Safety, on the plea that public interests demanded the sacri- 
fice, he consented to go. All they could promise him was one 
dollar a day, and all in their power to pay was two hundred 
and two dollars before his return. 

The Vermont controversy was pending before Congress 
between New York and New Hampshire, and the inhabitants 
of the territory, and fifty-four townships, between one and two 
millions of acres east of the Connecticut, not embraced in 
Mason's patent, or line sixty miles from the sea, depended on 
the decision, and might be lost to the State. As a lawyer, and 
most familiar with the evidence, it was important he should 
be there to defend the case, not as paid counsel, but as a 
Member of Congress. He argued it on different points of the 
questions involved on more than twenty different occasions 
against the ablest counsel opposed to him, and accomplished 
the main object, the preservation to New Hampshire of its 
fifty-four townships, Vermont being left where it belonged to 
the inhabitants, neither New York nor New Hampshire being 
able to show any valid claim. 

It was a busy session, and he took his full share of the 
debates and on committees. In reorganizing the finances 
and establishing the Bank of America, in instituting reforms 
in the army and civil administration, which instilled fresh 
vigor into the cause, he was active and energetic ; and what 
was done that year at Philadelphia rendered possible the 
success, which the next in the Southern campaign and at 
Yorktown secured independence. His influence also mate- 
rially aided to quell the mutinous spirit in the army, being 
chairman of the committee to bring back to their allegiance 
the Pennsylvania line. If he had deserted a post where he 
was useful from any false pride or delicacy or fear of miscon- 
struction, he would have deserved the censure the liistorian 



21 

seems eager to attach to hira. At the close of a letter to 
Luzerne, January 13, 1781, giving an account of the revolt 
and its termination, he says : " One circumstance ought not to 
be omitted which, in my judgment, does the insurgents much 
honor. When they delivered up the British emissaries. Gov- 
ernor Reed offered them one hundred golden guineas, which 
they refused, saying that what they did was only a duty they 
owed to their country, and that they neither wanted nor would 
receive any reward but the approbation of that country for 
which they had so often fought and bled." It is difficult to 
believe that General Sullivan would have used this language 
had he been conscious of any impropriety on his part, or 
addressed it to Luzerne, to whom it would have been a tacit 
reproach, if the minister had been guilty of what the historian 
imputes, an attempt to bribe him to be faithless. 

Unless convinced that his back pay and advances could have 
been relied upon to meet the unavoidable expenses attending 
his residence in Pbiladelphia, he doubtless would have persisted 
in declining a position in which pecuniary favors, even from 
a friend, might compromise his delicacy, shackle his inde- 
pendence, or to ungenerous minds afford a handle for miscon- 
struction or misrepresentation. 

Their payment was deferred not from any doubt as to their 
validity and justice, — the committee in September, 1781, allowed 
more than he asked for his advances, — but in consequence of 
the exhausted state of its treasury and inability on the part 
of the government. Left wholly without resources, if Luzerne, 
who, as there seems reason to believe from the above notice 
of him, was noble and generous, and with whom his late rank 
in the army, knowledge of French, and personal qualities led 
naturally to an intimacy, was willing to extend him his aid, 
it was his right to accept it, and no honorable mind familiar 
with his condition would think of making it a reproach. 
Application by the descendants of General Sullivan to the his- 
torian for a statement of the evidence on which he grounds 
his allegation, resulted in his reply that it was on a circum- 
stantial report from Luzerne to Vergennes, without stating what 
that report was. 



99, 



Upon a second application for the proofs if he had any of 
the charge, they were informed that, if a copyist were sent to 
the house of the historian in Washington, a copy could be 
taken. This is now submitted to the public, with the confident 
assertion that it in no measure or degree sustains the 
charge that he was in the pay of Luzerne, unless the accept- 
ance of a loan voluntarily offered in his distress, unattended 
by any other condition, expectation, or tacit understanding, 
except of repayment when he had the means, warrants the 
expression used. There is not the slightest evidence of cor- 
ruption or any improper or indelicate act or motive, but di- 
rectly of the reverse. The whole tenor of the letter throughout 
proves him thoroughly faithful to every obligation, honest and 
true, inaccessible to any corrupt influence, fearless of whom 
he offended in the discharge of his congressional duty, 
devoted to the cause of independence, unswerving in his 
fidelity to his State and country. It proves that in the darkest 
day of the struggle, wdien success seemed more than ever 
remote, and failure involved confiscation and perhaps death 
on the scaffold for the leaders, no proffers of rank or wealth 
as a reward for returning to his allegiance to Great Britain 
were the slightest temptation to him. If he had entertained 
for a moment the propositions of General Clinton, he certainly 
would not have selected the representative of France for his 
confident. The translation of the document has been made 
by one who had resided many years in France, and was printed 
under the supervision of the publishing committee of the Mas- 
sachusetts Historical Society. The letter is as follows : — 

Lettre de 31. de la Luzerne a M. de Vergennes. 

Philadelphia, le 13 mai 1781. 

MoNSEiGNKUR, — Lorsque la mallc aux Icttres de Phihuk'lphia fut 
intcrceptee I'annce dernicre et que les Anglais publicrent quelqucs- 
uiies de celles qu'ils y avaient trouvees, j'en remarquai una d'un Deloguo 
(|iii se plaignait du den1\ment on son Etat le laissait et de la cliertc-de 
toutcs les clioses necessaires a la vie dans Philadelphia, et j'eus Thonneur 
de vous en envoyer la traduction. Des cettc epoque il me parut ndcessaira 
«l'()u\ rir ina hourse a ce Delegue, dont rEniicmi connaissait les besoius 



23 

par sa propre confession, et sous I'apparence d'un pret, je lui remis G8 
guinees 4 septieraes. Une seconde malle interceptee a mis les Anglais 
en possession d'une lettre qui lui est adressee par le Tresorier de son 
Etat et qu'ils ont imprimee. Elle est cgalement relative a des besoins 
pecuniaires. Le G"!' Clinton a soup(jonne qu'un homme aussi presse 
d'argent pouvait etre dispose a se laisser corrompre, et comme il avait 
un frere prisonnier h New Yorck, il a permis a ce dernier de venir a 
Philadelphia sous pretexte de solliciter son echauge ; Ic Dclegue est 
venu me trouver et m'a confie que son frere lui avait remis une letti-e 
nou signee mais qu'il a reconnu a I'ecriture pour etre du Colonel 
Anglais qui est actuellement a New Yorck. " L'auteur de cette lettre," 
m'a-t-il dit, " apres s'etre etendu sur les ressources de I'Angleterre, sur 
les moyens qu'elle a de soumettre a la fin I'Amerique, me fait de grands 
coraplimcns sur mes lumieres, mcs talens et I'estime que les Anglais 
ont couQU pour moi, il ajoute qu'ils me regardent comme I'homme le 
plus propre a moyenner une reconciliation entre la Mere patrie et les 
Colonies Anglaises et qu'ils desirent que je leur expose mon sentiment 
sur cette matiere, que toutes les ouvertures de ma part seraient re9ues 
avec la reconnaissance qu'elles meritent, que je n'ai qu'a dire ce que je 
desire, que la personne qui m'ecrit a tout pouvoir d'ouvrir une negocia- 
tion particuliere avec moi, et que je puis compter sur le plus profond 
secret. J'ai repondu a mon frere avec toute Tindignation que m'in- 
spirait de pareilles avances, j'ai jete devant lui la lettre au feu, et 
lorsqu'il est parti pour New Yorck je I'ai prie de temoigner a ceux qui 
I'envoyaient que leurs offres avaient ete revues avec le plus profond 
mepris. J'ai cependant garde le silence vis-a-vis du Congres sur I'aventure, 
soit pour ne pas compromettre mon frere, soit pour ne pas faire parade de 
mon desinteressement, soit parceque j'ai trouve dangereux d'annoncer 
avec trop d'authenticite a mes Collegues que I'Ennemi cherche un traitre 
parmi eux, et que sa recompense est prete ; mais j'ai cru devoir vous 
confier oes details afin de vous mettre en garde centre les intrigues de 
I'Ennemi jusques dans le sein du Congres parceque s'ils ont ose faire 
de j^areilles olFres a moi, dont I'attachement a la bonne cause est aussi 
generalement conuu, il n'est que trop possible qu'ils en aient fait ^i 
d'autres qui ne viendront point vous en faire part." Le fond de cette 
confidence m'a paru vrai, Mgr., mais je ne suis pas aussi persuade 
(jue ce Delegue ait charge son frere de porter a New Yorck une 
reponse, aussi fiere et aussi insultante pour les Anglais qu'il me 
Tassure. II m'a meme fait une proposition tout a fait singuliere, c'est 
de feindre tie preter I'oreille aux ouvertures qui lui sont faites, d'en- 



24 

voyer un homme aifidc a New Yorck demander au G*]' Clinton un 
projet de conciliation, en ajoutant qu'il n'a pas voulu se servir du 
miuisterede son frere parcequ'il craint son attacheraent a I'independance. 
Je trouve, m'a-t-il dit divers avantages a sender de la sorte les disposi- 
tions des Anglais afin de connaitre quel pent etre leur plan de corrup- 
tion et de savoir jusqu'ou ils se proposent d'aller dans leurs concessions, 
et il m'a nomme quatre raembres du Congi-es, auxquels il se proposait 
de coniier son projet avant de I'executer, et qui sont tous gens d'un 
caractere eprouve. 

Le Delegue jouit lui-meme d'une excellente reputation et je 
repugne infiniment a soup9onner qu'il voudrait me faire servir de 
moteur a une correspondance avec I'ennemi ; mais il m'a si souvent 
parle des pertes que la revolution lui a occasionnees, il regrette si 
amerement son ancienne aisance, que j'ai craint pour lui la tentation 
h laquelle il voulait s'exposer, et je n'ai pas balance a le detourner du 
projet en lui exposant sans deguisement les grands inconveniens qu'il 
entraine. II ne m'a pas promis formellement d'y renoncer, mais, si 
malgre les representations que je me suis propose de lui reiterer, il y 
persistait je surveillerais de si pres sa conduite, que j'espere decouvrir 
tout ce qu'elle aura de bont^. Au reste je I'ai coustamment biea 
dispose a etre tres coufiant, et c'est a lui toujours que j'atti'ibue la rup- 
ture de la ligue formee par les Etats de I'Est, ligue, qui par de faosses 
idees de popularite, de liberte et par une jalousie excessive de Tarrade 
et du G^' en Chef a longtemps arrete les raesures les plus urgentes et 
qui en nombre d'occasions s'est montree egalement jalouse de nos 
avantages et de notre influence. II jouit de beaucoup de consideration 
dans son Etat, il eut le cr^it de le determiner a se declarer pour 
I'independance en 1776. C'est le seul Etat qui n'ait pas encore fixe 
sa forme de Gouvernement, et comme ce retai'd a de grands incon- 
veniens, et laisse aux mal intentionnes I'esperance de voir le retablis- 
sement du Gouvernement Anglais, il m'a promis des qu'il y retournera 
d'cmploycr tout son credit sur le peuple pour I'engager h se donner une 
constitution. 

J'ignore combien de temps il doit encore rester dans le Congres, 
mais j'ai pense que vous ne dcsapprouverez pas que je fisse I'offre que 
je lui ai fait I'annee derniere, aussi longtemps qu'il sera Delegue, et ma 
proposition a ete tres bien accueillie. Dans toutes les suppositions il 
est interessant de le menager. II est bien fiichoux que plusieurs autres 
Delegues se trouvent dans une situation encore plus ndcessitante. 
Ceux du Sud, dout les Etats sont euvahis, n'out d'autre rcssouroe que de 



Note. — " Mott-iir," in 12tli liiif, ;i mistake of copyist for " nianteau " ; 
"bontc','' in 2()tii, should read " louclio " : words " (.•ontinuer tous les six niois 
le pyC-t quo je lui," siiould tolluu the word " lui " in liCith. 



25 

recevoir du Congres un traitement pour leur Subsistance, et ce traite- 
ment est si borne que Tun d'eux qui a ete precedement Gouverneui* 
de Georgie est reduit a soustraire sa femme de la socicte, faute d'habits 
sous lesquelles elle puisse paraitre decemment. 

Cette tentative des Anglais m'a donne occasion de demander au 
Delegue a qui ils se sont adresses, si la longue habitude qu'il a du 
Congres et la maniere de voter de ses collegues lui avaient donne lieu 
de soup^onner quelqu'un d'eux de corruption, il m'a indique celui 
centre lequel j'ai d'ancieus soup(;ons et un autre dont le caractere lui 
parait egalemeut douteux ; mais a ces deux exceptions pres, il croit le 
Congres compose de gens d'un caractere sur et inaccessible a la seduc- 
tion. 

Je joins ici Mgr. la traduction d'un pamphlet publie centre M. 
Duane membre du Congres pour New Yorck, le jour meme oil ce 
Delegue a quitte Philadelphia pour se rendre dans son Etat. II a ete 
insere dans une Gazette dont le Redacteur a annonce qu'il encherissait 
sur ses Collegues quant ii la licence avec laquelle leurs papiers sont 
ecrits, et que la torture seule ou la formalite de lois lui arracherait les 
noms de ceux qui se serviraient de son journal pour publier leurs pro- 
ductions. Ou attribue I'ecrit dont il s'agit a Mr. le Gouverneur Morris, 
qui avait Siege dans cette assemblee jusqu'a la fin de 1779 comma 
Delegue de ce meme Etat. Les faits allegues sont reconnus vrais, 
mais je crois que Mr. Duane a depuis longtemps abandonne les prin- 
cipes equivoques qui ont regie sa conduite pendant les premieres 
annees de cette revolution, et je I'ai trouve constamment attach^ a 
I'independance. 

J'attendrai vos ordres Mgr. pour porter les avances dont il est 
question dans cette Depeche sur mes etats de depenses extraordin aires. 
Le Sr. Payne dont j'ai eu Thonneur de vous parler precedemment et 
sur qui je pensais qu'on pourrait jeter les yeux pour ecrire I'histoire de 
la revolution actuelle, est passe en France au mois de fevrier dernier 
sur la fregate V Alliance. 

Les deux vaisseaux expedies de Cadix avec des habits pour I'armee 
Americaine sont heureusement arrives a Boston. 

Je suis & & 
Signe Le Ch. de la Luzerne. 

Le Delegue dont il s'agit au Commencement de cette depeche, 
Mgr. est le General Sullivan qui represente au Congres I'Etat de New 
Hampshire. 

4 



26 



The same in English. 

Philadelphia, May 13, 1781. 

My Lord, — When the Philadelphia mail was intercepted last 
year, and the English published some of the letters which they found 
in it, I noticed one from a delegate, who complained of the destitute 
condition in which he was left by his State, and of the dearness of all 
necessaries of life in Philadelphia, and I had the honor to send you a 
translation of it. From this time, it seemed to me necessary to open 
my purse to this delegate, whose wants the enemy knew by his own 
confession ; and, under the semblance of a loan,* I advanced him 68 
guineas and 4 sevenths. A second intercepted mail put the English 
into possession of a letter addressed to him by the Treasurer of his 
State, which they have printed. It also relates to his pecuniary needs. 
General Clinton suspected that a man so pressed for money might be 
open to corruption ; and as he had a brother, a prisoner in New York, 
he allowed the latter to come to Philadelphia, under pretext of solicit- 
ing his exchange.f The delegate came to me, and confided to me that 
his brother had given him a letter, not signed, but which he recognized 
by the handwriting to be from an English colonel who is now in New 
York. " The author of this letter," he said to me, " after expatiating 
upon the resources of England and the means she possesses of subju- 
gating America finally, pays me great compliments upon my intelli- 
gence, talents, and upon the esteem in which I am held by the English, 
and adds that they look upon me as the most proper person to bring 
about a reconciliation between the mother country and the English 
colonies, and they desire me to make known to them my sentiments 
in the matter; that all overtures on my part will be received with- the 
gratitude which they deserve ; that I have only to give expression to 
my wishes ; that the person who writes to me has full power to open 

* So far as General Sullivan was concerned, this implies that it was offered 
ns a loan and accepted as a loan. If then or later no return was expected by 
M. Luzerne, there is no evidence or reason to believe that General Sullivan did 
not intend to return it, or that he did not actually do so. 

t As Daniel Sullivan was loyal throughout to the cause of independence, and 
his life sacrificed to it in the Jersey hulks, he was not likely to have been 
party or privy to Clinton's "pretext." What General Sullivan proposed as a 
reason to be assigned to Clinton for employing a trusty person other than Daniel, 
that he fears his attaclnncnt to independence, shows he could not have had 
knowledge of tlie contents of the letter from New York before it was opened or 
ol the proposition it contained. 



27 

a private negotiation with me ; and tliat I may count upon the most 
profound secrecy. I answered my brother with all the indignation which 
such advances were calculated to inspire. I threw the letter into the 
fire before him, and, when he left for New York, I begged him to de- 
clare to those who sent him that their offers had been received with 
the most profound contempt. I said nothing to Congress about this 
affair, partly not to compromise my brother, partly not to make a parade 
of my disinterestedness, partly because it seemed dangerous to an- 
nounce with too much confidence to my colleagues that the enemy 
sought a traitor among them and that his recompense was ready. But 
I thought it my duty to confide to you these details, in order to put you 
upon your guard against the intrigues which the enemy is carrying 
into the very centre of Congress ; because if they dared make such 
offers to me, whose attachment to the good cause is so generally known, 
it is only too possible that they have made them to others who may 
not come forward to tell you of them." 

What he confided to me has seemed substantially true, my Lord, 
but I am not as convinced that this delegate charged his brother to 
carry to New York so proud and insulting a reply to the English as 
Ije said he had done. He even made me a very singular proposition : 
it was to feign to listen to the overtures which were made to him, 
to send to New York a trusty messenger to ask from General Clin- 
ton a lAan of reconciliation, in adding* that he did not wish to avail 
himself of the intervention of his brother, because he feai's his attach- 
ment to Independence. " I find," said he to me, " several advantages 
in sounding in this way the disposition of the English, so as to know 
what may be their plan of corruption, and to know how far they pro- 
pose to carry their concessions ; " and he named to me four members 
of Congress, to whom he thought of confiding his plan before putting 
it in execution, and who are all persons of approved character. 

The delegate himself enjoys an excellent reputation, and it is ex- 
ceedingly repugnant to me to suspect that he wished to involve me in 
a correspondence with the enemy ; but he has so often spoken to me of 

* " En ajoutant " should be translated " in adding." What follows, " that he 
fears his brother's attachment to independence," is not meant for Luzerne, but as 
the reason to be assigned to Clinton in New York for not negotiating througli 
Daniel. It would be absurd to suppose that General Sullivan was proposing 
to the Frencli minister wliat would shock his brother's sense of wliat was proper 
and honorable. It is not probable that the idea of any such communicatiou 
with Clinton was ever seriously entertained. 



28 

the losses which he has met with by the Revolution, he regrets so bit« 
terly his former competency, that I have feared for him the temptation 
to which he wished to expose himself, and I have not hesitated to divert 
him from the plan by showing him plainly the great inconveniences 
that it would entail. He has not formally promised me to renounce it ; 
but it, m spite of the views that I intend again to present to him, he 
should persist, I will watch his course so closely that I shall hope to 
discover all that is good in it. As to the rest, I have always found him 
disposed to be very confiding, and it is to him that I always attrib- 
ute the rupture of the league formed by the Eastern States ; a league 
which, by false ideas of popularity, of liberty, and by an excessive 
jealousy of the Army and of the General-in-Chief, has for so long a 
time delayed the most urgent measures, and which on numerous occa- 
sions has shown itself equally jealous of our advantages and of our 
influence. He enjoys much consideration in his State, and had the 
credit of determining it to declare for Independence in 1776. This 
is the only State which has not yet fixed upon its form of Govern- 
ment ; and as this delay has great inconveniences, and leaves to the 
badly intentioned the hope of seeing the re-establishment of the Eng- 
lish Government, he has promised upon his return to use all his credit 
with the people to induce them to give themselves a constitution. 

I do not know how much time he has yet to remain in Congress, 
but I thought you would not disapprove my making him the same 
offer that I made him last year, as long as he remains a delegate ; and 
my proposition has been very well received.* At all events, it is desira- 
ble to treat him with consideration. It is much to be regretted that 
several other delegates find themselves in a still more necessitous con- 
dition. Those from the South, where the States are invaded, have no 
other resource than to receive from Congress an allowance for their 
subsistence, and this allowance is so limited that one of the delegates, 
who was formerly Governor of Georgia, is obliged to withdraw his wife 
from society for want of attire in which she could suitably ap})ear. 

This attempt of the English has given me the opportunity of asking 

* Tlie loan was made in the autumn' of 1780. As lie served but one year, 
the occasion did not arrive for the second one being made. The amount was 
so nearly identical witii what lie was to receive from liis State that this, there 
seems reason to presume, fixed the amount. New Hampsliire had no regular 
government or taxes. Money was probably contributed by those best of!" for 
public purposes. The entry on his account, in which he states the receipt 
of $"202, has no date attached to it, and may not have been before his return 
home in September, 1781. 



29 

the delegate to whom they have applied if the long acquaintance he 
has had with Congress, and the manner of voting among his colleagues, 
has led him to suspect any of them of corruption. He pointed out to 
me one against whom I had some old suspicions, and another whose 
character appeared to him equally doubtful ; but with perhaps these 
two exceptions he felt sure that the Co^igress was composed of persons 
of trustworthy character and inaccessible to corruption. 

I transmit, my Lord, the translation of a pamphlet against Mr. Duane, 
member of Congress for New York, published the very day that this 
delegate left Philadelphia to go to his own State. It has been in- 
serted in a Gazette whose Editor has announced that he valued con- 
tributors according to the license with which they had written, and 
that torture alone, or the formality of the law, should draw from him 
the names of those who should use his journal to publish their produc- 
tions. The article now in question is said to be by Gouverneur Mor- 
ris, who sat in this assembly till the end of 1779 as delegate from 
this same State. The alleged fiicts are acknowledged to be true, but 
I think that Mr. Duane has long since abandoned the equivocal prin- 
ciples which guided him during the first years of the Revolution, and 
I have found him always attached to Independence. 

I shall await your orders, my Lord, to enter the advances spoken 
of in this despatch upon my account of extraordinary expenses. Mr. 
Paine, of whom I have had the honor to speak to you before, and 
to whom I have thought all might look to write the history of the 
present Revolution, left for France last February, in the frigate 
" Alliance." 

The two vessels sent from Cadiz with clothing for the American 
army have arrived safely in Boston. 

I am, &c., &c., 
Signed, The Chevalier de la Luzerne. 

The delegate of whom I spoke at the beginning of tliis despatch, 
my Lord, is General Sullivan, who represents in Congress the State 
of New Hampshire. 

That he should have stood in need of pecuniary assistance, 
in 1780, in Philadelphia was no discredit to him. He had 
expended all his available means in the service of the country ; 
that country owed him five thousand dollars, of which he had 
reason to expect payment of a part certainly at an early day. 



30 

The array was ten months in arrear ; currency seventy to one 
in silver. The resources of tlie country were exhausted ; Wash- 
ington writes, there was not money enough in the treasury to 
pay for an express : and that he should have been in a 
straitened condition, and at a loss to procure food and raiment, 
was his misfortune and not his fault. The whole tenor of his 
conduct in private and public relations was upright and honor- 
able, and his life may safely challenge the most searching 
scrutiny for any transaction to justify the character which the 
historian would attach to this loan. 

After the arduous campaign of 1777, of Brandywine and 
Germantown, when the army settled down at Valley Forge, 
General Sullivan requested a furlough in January, 1778, for 
the reason that his means were exhausted, his raiment in rags, 
and he wished to go home to replenish them. "Washington 
felt compelled to withhold his consent, as there were not gen- 
eral officers enough in camp for the ordinary routine of duty. 
Later, when this objection was removed, he renewed his appli- 
cation, stating his needs, and that his pay for a month, such 
was the depreciation, was not sufficient for the expenses of a 
day. His second appeal was favorably received, and in March 
he was appointed to command the military department of 
Rhode Island at Providence. 

Marbois, in his " Treason of Arnold," has given us the reply of 
Luzerne to that General, when he sought help to pay his debts, • 
uro-ino- as an inducement the service he could render in return 
to the French government. These sentiments are in character 
with what is known of Luzerne and with those of his letter to 
Vergennes. There is not a single expression to intimate a 
wish or intent to corrupt. It is difficult indeed to conceive 
of any assignable motive for the French government or its 
ministers to desire to corrupt the Congress. France and 
America were one in the war. They had no separate objects 
or contlicting interests. Louis XVI. had expressly that very 
year disclaimed any wish to recover Canada, unless for the 
Americans. In a contest of which the strength essentially 
consisted in character and moral force, it would have been 



ol 

suicidal to weaken public confidence by exposing to suspicion 
those who possessed it. France was at tliis time not only- 
fighting- our battles, sending us arms and raiment, lending and 
giving us money, and guaranteeing our loans, but actually 
paying from her treasury our ministers abroad. But this loan 
to Sullivan was not from Prance, but from the minister at his 
own motion and from his own private purse who did not men- 
tion it to Yei'gennes till six months afterwards. May 13, 1781, 
and then asks permission under the circumstances to charge 
it on account of his extraordinary expenses. When Sullivan 
accepted the loan, he had reason to expect to be able soon to 
repay it, but the poverty of the treasury prevented his obtain- 
ing what was due to him, and Luzerne had perhaps become, 
with reason, doubtful of repayment. In the absence of any 
proof to the contrary, there seems every reason to presume 
that Sullivan duly paid back what was thus kindly advanced. 
He received it as a loan, and thei'e is no evidence he accepted 
it as a gift, or so considered it, certainly none as a bribe ; and 
the assertion that he was in the pay of Luzerne, and that it 
influenced his vote, is a wholly gratuitous aspersion on his 
integrity, a violence to language and violation of truth. His 
pay as Major-general, Attorney-general, President of the State, 
federal judge, was small. His depreciation, about five thousand 
dollars, was allowed him in 1787 ; his lands and mills became 
valuable after the peace: but his expenses were large, his hos- 
pitalities bountiful, and when he died he left the estate at Dur- 
ham, but little else, to his family. But this does not prove he 
did not repay the sixty-eight guineas to Luzerne. 

The allusion to better days, in contrast with his then strait- 
ened condition not understood by Luzerne, seems susceptible of 
easy explanation. It does not necessarily imply that General 
Sullivan repined at sacrifices he doubtless cheerfully accepted 
with his countrymen as the price of liberty. He may have 
been simply paying an indirect compliment to the minister 
whose hospitality and festal entertainments were the one cheer- 
ing incident in the social life of Philadelphia at that gloomy 
period ; or possibly apologizing for attire not up to the occasion 



32 



or in character with the splendors that surrounded him ; or, 
what is jet more natural, for the reduced condition which com- 
pelled him to accept a pecuniary faV^or by this loan thus kindly 
proffered. He was frank and outspoken, and what he said was 
not intended for history ; and there is no reason to believe that 
any candid mind will give it an ungenerous or unwarranted 
construction. 

Luzerne expresses a doubt if the response sent by his brother 
Daniel to Clinton was as proud and offensive as described. 
But a few months before, Arnold had sold himself to the 
English for thirty thousand pounds and other like considera- 
tions ; and the sentiment among the Americans towards him 
would have naturally created a lively sense of indignation in 
any honorable mind at this attempt to tamper. Daniel Sulli- 
van, after being engaged in the siege of Castine, was taken, in 
February, 1780, from his bed at Sullivan in Maine, by Mowatt, 
who burnt Falmouth in 1775. In an English frigate entering 
Frenchman's Bay, he burnt Daniel's house, the family being 
driven out into the snow, took him to Castine, endeavored to 
induce him to swear allegiance to the king, and upon his refusal 
carried him to New York, where he was imprisoned in the Jersey 
hulks, and, when released a few months after this visit to Phila- 
delphia, he died, it is said of poison, on the Sound on his way 
home. 

The response Gen. Sullivan made to Clinton's proposition, 
the disposition of the letter, his selection of his confidant, all 
proved his good sense, right feeling, and integrity of character. 
That no evidence exists in the letter of Luzerne that he com- 
municated this attempt to corrupt him to his associates in Con- 
gress, is no proof that no such communication was made. It 
probably was made to his more intimate friends. The proposi- 
tion to draw Clinton into a correspondence, with the knowledge 
of four of the most trusty and respected members of Congress, 
was thrown out in the freedom of friendly intercourse, without 
fear of misapprehension, and was probably not very seriously 
contemplated for a moment, and dismissed without a second 
thought. It should serve as a caution to public characters to 



33 

weigh their words in conversation with foreign ministers, whose 
correspondence home, after slumbering for ages in its appropri- 
ate sepulchres, may be exhumed by historians to work preju- 
dice not deserved. The letter of Luzerne, so far from proving 
that Sullivan was in his pay by borrowing from him three 
hundred dollars, which he offered of his own accord, is honor- 
able to Sullivan throughout. We do not claim any credit for 
him for not yielding to Clinton's attempt to corrupt him. 
Thouo-h penniless, with some reason to feel he had been un- 
kindly dealt with by Congress, though the cause was well-nigli 
lost by exhaustion and discouragement, and he may well have 
anticipated confiscation and possibly death as the consequence 
of its failure, it was no temptation to him, and he certainly 
was not likely to sell his integrity to Luzerne for a few hun- 
dred dollars, if it had not been a gratuitous insult to the 
memory of that minister to suppose him capable of any partici- 
pation in any such transaction. 

In history as in morals, suppression of the truth is near akin 
to suggestion of what is not. If descendants or kindred of 
historical personages have no rights historians are bound to 
respect, readers of history certainly have a claim not to be mis- 
led ; and historical societies are bound to further the cause of 
the truth in historical relations. It signifies little what view 
any one author may entertain of the public services of the 
dead, who cannot vindicate their fame when unjustly aspersed ; 
but, where his position enables him to convey erroneous im- 
pressions, societies and individuals should listen without 
impatience and without favor, with entire impartiality, till 
both sides have been heard. 

In some other passages of the lately published volume, occa- 
sion is taken to present views not borne out by the evidence 
with regard to General Sullivan. It is stated that in the 
Rhode Island campaign in 1778, Sullivan for a whim detained 
for ten days the French fleet in the offing. In his first letter 
to D'Estaing, upon his arrival, — the copy is not dated, — he 
states his reasons for wishing the larger part of the fleet to 
block up the middle channel between Rhode Island and Conan- 

6 



34 

icut, were to prevent re-enforcements from New York, to keep 
out the British fleet, to co-operate with the force that was to 
])ass up the West Channel to turn Conanicut and prevent 
three British regiments on that island from passing over to 
Newport. This was not a whim, hut good sense, and the 
historian had access to this letter which explained them. 
Even in this Sullivan did not dictate, but left it to D'Estaing's 
own judgment to determine what was best. 

The admiral, in his letters, assigns three other reasons for 
remaining where he was until the arrival of the American 
re-enforcements sliould justify an attack. His fleet, farther up 
the channel, would be exposed to the fire of the batteries, 
which could inflict more damage upon his vessels than he 
could upon them. In the anticipation of a possible attack 
from Howe and Byron, it was important to keep control of his 
fleet, which, as the south wind generally prevails at Newport 
in summer, he would lose higher up, and his laying off" Beaver- 
Tail, blockading the middle channel, would prevent the garri- 
son escaping. This last consideration loses force as the event 
fell short of expectation ; but if an attack could have been 
made by the combined forces of D'Estaing and Sullivan the 
place must have surrendered. 

All the arrangements for landing on the island were based 
upon the British retaining Butt's Hill, about one hundred and 
eighty feet high, strongly fortified at the north end of the island 
commanding the passage from Tiverton, the best place to cross. 
As soon as they abandoned it, Sullivan crossed over, and took 
possession early on the morning of the 9th of August. D'Estaing 
had written him two days before that he proposed to land when 
he had an opportunity without waiting for him. Any one who 
knows the island must realize that if with such a force any 
crossing was to be effected, the opportunity to do so unopposed 
was not to be hazarded by delay. It is inconceivable that Sul- 
livan should not have sought to communicate the fact of his 
crossing the earliest possible moment to D'Estaing. He did so. 
Lafayette went to the fleet that morning, whilst one part of the 
army intended to co-operate with D'Estaing remained still at 
Tiverton. 



35 

That day the fleet of Howe hove in sight, and on the next 
morning D'Estaing bore down upon it; but the English admiral 
drew him off the coast, probably to open the gate for re-enforce- 
ments to Newport. When on the 20th his fleet returned in a 
shattered condition, Greene and Lafayette, going on board, 
endeavored in vain to persuade him to remain. The moment 
hope could no longer be reasonably entertained of co-operation, 
orders were given by General Sullivan to fortify Butt's Hill 
and Howland's ferry, and that other measures should be taken 
for withdrawing from the island. The volunteers had l)ecome 
restless, and many of them had already left. It was necessary 
to proceed with caution ; for, in the event of a panic, the safety 
of the army would have been endangered. If numerically 
stronger, — Sullivan had less than eight thousand men ; the 
garrison of Newport consisted of about seven thousand, for the 
most part veterans well officered and organized; a large propor- 
tion of the American troops had been hastily levied since the 
middle of July, undrilled, poorly armed, only fifteen hundred 
having ever been in action. 

While taking every step to ensure a safe and speedy re- 
treat, a bold front was presented to the enemy ; and the general 
orders of the twenty-fourth, after impressing upon his army the 
importance of not allowing the departure of the French fleet to 
discourage them, expressed a hope that they might be able to 
procure by their own arms what their allies refused their assist- 
ance in obtaining. On ihe twenty-sixth, while disclaiming any 
intention of giving offence to their allies, he expressed the 
wish that they might speedily return to carry out the enterprise. 
Certainly, under no other compulsion than his own good sense 
and consideration for others he cheerfully endeavored to remove 
on this occasion, as on many another in his life, sensitiveness 
from expressions he had felt bound to use under the existing 
conditions, and which had wounded undue susceptibility. Our 
own army and the country had cause to feel not only disap- 
pointed but provoked at the posture of affairs. Had D'Estaing 
on his return consented to stay forty-eight hours, Newport 
would have been taken. 



36 

In the army were many of the most influential men of New 
England, of its hest and bravest, who had left their work and 
their employments with confidence of success from the encour- 
agement held out by France. They had made extraordinary 
efforts and been at great cost. To keep them in good heart 
and willing to remain till they could withdraw in safety from 
the island was the main consideration, and this was best to be 
accomplished by giving expression to their prevailing sentiment. 
Whoever scans without prejudice either of the gi'neral orders, 
of the 24th or 26th, must admit that they were eminently 
calculated to produce the state of feeling the occasion demanded, 
of reliance upon themselves in the first moment of abandonment, 
of due acknowledgment to France for services rendered to the 
cause as well as confidence in her continued co-operation. Gen- 
eral Sullivan's own letter to D'Estaing contained no word of 
irritation, and the protest that followed was an exact statement 
of the case, and the French officers, in taking umbrage at its 
freedom, were unduly sensitive. If they had acted upon its sen- 
sible conclusions, instead of losing temper, Newport would have 
fallen, and the war possibly have come to an end. Sullivan 
had but little time in the pressure of events to cull words or 
phrases, but only the maligner can find in what is left of his 
correspondence of those busy weeks any thing to criticise or 
censure. 

Sullivan is criticised for fortifying Honeyman's Hill with a 
redoubt. All may not be familiar with the ground ; but the 
hill one hundred and eighty feet in elevation, and the highest 
point at the southerly part of the island, was just two miles from 
the extreme left of the British outer line beyond Miantonomi 
Hill, and a like distance from the extreme right of its inner 
line at Easton Beach. The salient point of the British outer 
line at Bliss Hill was within half a mile of Honeyman's, and the 
fire of the American works compelled Pigot to draw farther 
l)ack. Honeyman's Hill could not be turned ; and, in case of 
re-enforcements to the garrison and any disaster compelling 
withdrawal from the island, it would have formed a rallying 
point. It communicated by a straight road running north to 



37 



the east road, the direct line to Butt's Hill, and also with the 
east passage, in case it were found worth while to cross lower 
down, boats at Tiverton being near enough to be available for 
that purpose anywhere along the shore. 

The historian is of course wiser than Gridley or Gouvion, 
two of the most distinguished engineers of the war, when he 
complains that batteries were raised too remote to be of use. 
The most distant was half a mile from the outer lines of the 
enemy, and Pigot admits that their fire compelled him to 
withdraw his troops. It must be remembered that it was 
the 23d of August before all hope of co-operation was relin- 
quished, indeed not altogether then, and it was not prudent to 
acquaint the enemy by discontinuing the approaches that the 
siege was given up. Of the five general officers consulted on 
that day nearly all counselled an attack on the enemy's lines 
if opportunity offered. But Sullivan, whilst prepared for such 
an event, sent over his heavy guns and stores, and fortified 
Howland's and Bristol ferry. It was on the 28th that the 
departure of three thousand of the militia and volunteers whose 
terms of enlistment were expired reduced his strength so that 
the expectation of any such chance occurring was given up, and 
that day the Americans, without precipitation, removed to 
Butt's Hill at the north end of the island. 

If the author had known much of what was usual among 
gentlemen and generals at that period, he would have realized 
that General Washington was too much of both to send incessant 
messages to quit the island. Sullivan commanded a separate 
department, responsible to Congress and the Board of War as 
well as to the Commander-in-chief, and all of them while giving 
information and advice would naturally have left the decision 
of what was most prudent to the officer in command. Letters 
were two or three days on the road between White Plains and 
Newport. 

Washington wrote on the 23d to inform Sullivan that one 
hundred and fifty vessels were collected near Frog's Point, and 
possibly destined for Newport, and that he must be upon his 
guard ; that he docs not doubt that every precaution will 1)C 



taken to secure the passage across to the main on any emer- 
gency ; at the same time he is persuaded that he will not suffer 
any ill-founded or premature alarm to produce any change in 
his dispositions which may impair or frustrate the enterprise. 
On the 29th he says that the day before he had written to say that 
a number of transports were in the sound, and were then at 
Oyster Bay, detained by the wind ; that a large body of troops 
had been embarked upon them from Long Island, and it was 
rumored that they numbered five thousand men, and Sir Henry 
Clinton was with them. Sullivan was already making all due 
despatch in order to leave the island without sacrifice of his 
valuable stores of provisions, arms, and munitions of war, which 
had been collected there. He was daily apprised of all that 
it concerned him to know. When the letter of the 29th reached 
him he had already quitted the island, and the uncourtcous 
language indulged by the historian conveys a censure altogether 
undeserved. The admirable letter of General Greene to John 
Brown bears witness to the prudence, sagacity, and energy of 
General Sullivan throughout the campaign, and Congress con- 
firmed the justice of his conclusions by their vote of thanks. 

Sullivan is said to have been unduly importunate for supplies 
for the Indian expedition of 1779. His force when Clinton 
was ready, and he could not start before, left Wyoming twenty- 
one hundred strpng on the 31st of July, and Clinton joined 
them at Tioga on the 22d of August. Their united forces, 
about thirty-six hundred, discovered on the 29th the Indians 
with their British allies in a well-fortified position at Newtown. 
They were less actually in number than there was reason to 
believe. The fort was on the declivity of a hill with the water 
in front and forming a bend around it. To have made an 
assault fi'om the space between the water and the hill would 
have exposed the army to disadvantage ; and the object was, if 
possible, to capture the enemy with little loss. He despatched 
a force under Clinton and Poor to attack them in the rear from 
the hills above and surround them ; but its progress was obsti- 
nately disputed, and the enemy, better acquainted with tho 
ground, effected their escape. 



39 

Wasliington, on the IStli January, 1779, wrote Sullivan that 
as no reasonable expectation could be entertained of collecting 
sufficient forces for an attack to advantage on New York or 
Rhode Island, and the invasion of Canada was too hazardous 
and expensive, he advised that the efficiency of the army should 
be increased by discipline and organization rather than by num- 
bers and that by improving the condition of officers and soldiers 
the service should be rendered popular. In this Sullivan was 
disposed of course to aid, and, in the opinion of a good judge in 
military matters, the instructions given by General Sullivan to 
his officers, the order of march he prescribed to his troops, and 
the discipline he had the ability to maintain, would have done 
honor to the most experienced general. 

He maintained good discipline in his camp, and firing the 
morning gun as customary, when omitted, would have been 
sufficient blind to their position. It would have been folly to 
have expected to keep the movements of so numerous a force 
concealed from the Indians, in the wilderness with so large a 
part of which they were familiar ; whilst for the Americans to 
leave their lines was to expose them to the fate of Captain Boyd, 
and it was consequently judicious to conform to the ordinary 
ceremonial of camp life. Their instructions were to destroy 
the crops and villages, but so late in the season that the In- 
dians should not replant or rebuild ; to prevent their inroads on 
our settlements by retaliation, and by depriving them of means 
of annoyance : and this was effected, but, long before the ap- 
pointed task was completed, the army was put on short allow- 
ance from insufficient supplies. General Sullivan's request to 
the army to submit patiently to half rations, which had become 
from the quantity remaining unavoidable, stated that every 
effort had lieen made, but from inattention to his entreaties 
enough had not been provided. This gave offence to the Board 
of War ; but, long before the campaign was over or its objects 
efTected, they were from this cause in danger of being defeated. 
Congress took no notice of these expressions of discontent, 
but passed the usual vote of thanks to the army for what it 
liad accomplished. 



40 

Our present design is not a biography. Materials exist not 
yet in print to warrant such a work. It would shed light that 
is needed upon the great historical epoch that cradled our 
national life and shaped the Republic. But whilst our institu- 
tions are considered worthy of preservation, interest in that 
epoch will little abate. Other generations will demand new 
publications, value what remains to be told of its characters 
and incidents. Prejudice and misconception will have at last 
run their course, and juster estimates be made. Should these 
materials be thus improved by some one competent for the task, 
the services Sullivan rendered to the cause of independence 
will be better appreciated. His path of duty was beset with 
many embarrassments. He had to contend with his full share 
of ill-natured opposition and ungenerous rivalry. It was a 
fiery furnace to try whatever there was of good in him, but 
among the most precious legacies our revolutionary era has left 
us are the lessons it affords for the study of character. 

Standards differ as to what is meritorious. But there are 
central points common to all. It is not for his near of kin to 
praise him, but some latitude must be allowed even to them 
when appealing to the country from what they conceive a 
systematic attempt to defame by statements they can prove to 
be untrue and inferences which are wholly unsustained. No 
human character is free from blemish. But his ardent desire 
not only to deserve but secure the favorable judgment of other 
men never swerved him from what he conceived his duty 
demanded. His quickness of temper under injury and insult, 
impatience of what he conceived open to censure, his frankness 
in expressing his mind, became chastened, and he profited by 
experience. His readiness to make reparation when he had 
given unwilling or unintentional offence, his general amiability 
and kindliness of nature, his warm sympathy with other men's 
troubles and generous contributions to their needs to the extent 
of his means and opportunity, should cover a multitude of faults, 
if any ho had. His character in some points was strongly 
contrasted to that of Greene, one of the noblest of the war. 
Greene was of a calmer mould, of a quieter temperament. 



41 

But they were both loyal, upright, self-sacrificing, generous, 
attached to each other as they were to Washington and 
Washington to them ; and as the friend of Washington and 
Greene, whose esteem he never forfeited or lost, the memory of 
Sullivan will remain unscathed, even under the fiery darts of 
the historian. 

Our struggle for. liberty and independence was not by any 
means a series of brilliant victories. It consisted, on the 
contrary, of constant defeats, but brave and prolonged resist- 
ance to enemies more numerous, better armed and supplied 
with every appliance of war, whilst our troops were often with- 
out shoes to their feet, was more heroic, redounded more to the 
glory of the combatants than success. There were other trials 
besides physical suffering. Hope deferred imbittered the public 
mind, and whoever occupied positions of responsibility was 
held to rigorous account for not succeeding where success was 
impossible, and it was quite unreasonable to expect it. This 
disposition to hold him accountable for events wiiich he could 
not control had its advantages. He was not disposed to 
parade his services, but when subjected to criticism he was 
often compelled in self-defence to state what had actually taken 
place, and details that otherwise would have been lost have been 
preserved. What he stated to Congress or other public bodies 
or in the press was with the knowledge of crowds of witnesses 
who had taken part in the events described. The accuracy of 
his statements would have been questioned if not corresponding 
with their own impressions. Every particle of information 
connected with the war has its interest, and these details are of 
value. Possibly the readiness to censure may have chilled the 
spirit of enterprise, and induced circumspection ; but in our 
Fabian policy, which was our safety, and which our inferior 
means and numbers rendered imperative, it may also have 
prevented waste of resources not easily replaced. 

As this vindication may be read by many unacquainted with 
the biographies of General Sullivan, some passages from them 
are presented to indicate what he appeared to his contempo- 
raries or to the generation tliat immediately followed. They 
are for the most part selected from Peabody's Memoir : — 



42 

" General Sullivan was an eloquent lawyer, a good writer, and, as a 
man, just and sagacious. He was generous, high-spirited, and intrepid; 
and, in his bearing, graceful and dignified. He conversed freely and 
with fluency; and his engaging address made the stranger at once at 
ease in his presence. He had the faculty — invaluable to an advocate 
— of making each one in a company of many persons think he was 
an object of his particular attention. He was hospitable, fond of the 
elegancies of life, prodigal of money ; but in his dealings honest, 
generous, and honorable. His temper was ordinarily mild and 
tranquil, and as far removed from petulance as any man could be, but 
when irritated it was fierce and violent. It was however transient, 
leaving bel^ind it no feeling of bitterness ; a single conciliatory word 
would readily disarm his anger. He was not without fondness for 
display, and at all times exercised a liberal hospitality. In his deal- 
ings he was scrupulously careful of the feelings as well as the rights of 
others ; always generous, and more careless of his own interest than 
his friends could have desired. 

" His talents must have been of no ordinary kind. Without many 
advantages of early instruction, he rose, at an early period of life, to 
high distinction at the bar, and in a few years entered the military 
service. Little time could have been spared from these engagements 
to devote to subjects unconnected with his principal pursuits ; but he 
appears to have been familiar with political science ; and his letters, 
the only productions of his pen which survive, ai'e written in a clear, 
vigorous, and manly style. 

" He took a lively interest in military preparations for defence, 
and his writings on that subject are sensible and comprehensive. His 
religious sentiments were deep, though he shrank from display ; and a 
manuscript defence of Christianity — written in camp and circulated 
amongst his brother-officers — is alluded to in a subsequent notice of 
him, though not known to have been preserved." 

Should it be thought that too much importance has been 
attached to this charge, it must be remembered that the 
expressions used in their natural import convey an imputa- 
tion of dishonor which has no greater or less, for which had it 
been true there is no extenuation. Influence exerted or votes 
cast in legislative bodies from unworthy motives are not to be de- 
fended, cannot be palliated. The charge not only was calculated 



43 

to create prejudice from its vagueness, but from the evidence 
being in a foreign language, in a confidential letter of great 
length, occupied with other topics. It was necessary to secure 
a faithful rendering of the original letter which could not be 
questioned, and then that its contents should be passed upon 
by the leading historical societies of the country, better able to 
pass judgment upon such questions from their familiarity with 
the period, its events aud personages, than the generality of 
readers. The letter of Luzerne and its translation, with the 
comments upon it herein contained, as well as the correction 
of numberless other mistakes of the historian, have bccu laid 
before the historical societies of Rhode Island, those of Maine, 
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Pcnns5dvania, and is 
respectfully commended to the attention of other similar soci- 
eties in America, to consider whether the acceptance of a loan 
of three hundred dollars, when penniless, in Philadelphia, from 
M. Luzerne,justifies the language used by the historian ; whether 
that language was not obviously designed to convey an impres- 
sion wholly unsupported by the evidence which, when the 
descendants of General Sullivan besought and demanded the 
proof of this cruel charge, was forthcoming. Those descendants 
may well ask the American public to credit to the unreasoning 
and unscrupulous prejudice, to use no harsher term, which has 
inspired this accusation, the unjust and uncourteous criticisms 
on his military services. There is not a statement of any 
importance in this last volume or its predecessor relating to 
him which is not wholly untrue or grossly inexact. 

Honorable and candid minds not blinded by the reputation 
of a successful writer to the claims of truth will, we are confi- 
dent, after examination of the evidence, come to the conclu- 
sion that he was not a pensioner of Luzerne ; that he did not 
for a whim keep D'Estaing ten days in the oflfing at Newport ; 
that he sent timely notice to that ofiicer of his crossing on to 
the island ; that what Greene, Glover, Cornell, Varnum, were 
willing to sign could not have been more than the occasion 
demanded ; and that he did not disregard Washington's order 
to leave the island, as he did not receive any, but of his own 



44 

judgment, lost no time in withdrawing the moment it was 
prudent and sensible that he should. 

This claim upon the attention of the American public can 
require no apology. The character of our statesmen and 
general officers, prominently engaged in our revolutionary 
struggle, concerns us all. The success of that struggle against 
formidable odds and various discouragements is to be attrib- 
uted, in part, to the virtue and patriotism of the whole people, 
but also, in a great measure, to the high honor and unimpeach- 
able integrity of their leaders in counsel and field. The 
confidence which they inspired gave strength at home, and 
conciliated support from abroad. When, as in this instance, 
charges are brought which tarnish their good name, it be- 
hooves the public generally, and especially historical societies 
composed of historical students familiar with the subject, to 
investigate their truth. It is important that the vindication 
should be preserved in the transactions ; they are of a perma- 
nent nature, and will be accessible in all future times to his- 
torical writers. If evidence is wanting of any fact stated to 
show these charges groundless, it is at hand. 



APPENDIX. 



In one of the comments of the "Philadelphia Press" on 
the paper read by President Wallace, of the Historical Society 
of Pennsylvania, on the letter of Luzerne, are to be found 
certain arguments conclusive to show that not only the state- 
ments of the historian are not sustained by the evidence offered, 
but could not possibly be true : they are not embraced in 
the paper read itself, or, if suggested, not directly and fully 
presented. The article says that the document produced by 
the historian fails to show that Sullivan's vote on the fislieries 
was in any way influenced by the loan, and for the following 
reasons : — 

"1. Luzerne says that the delegate 'enjoys an excellent reputa- 
tion,' and that it is ' exceedingly repugnant to me to suspect that he 
wished to involve rae in a correspondence with the enemy.' But to 
what purpose is such a remark if Luzerne was at the moment con- 
scious that he had himself been guihy of bribing a member of Con- 
gress, and had just bought the man in question for the paltry sum of 
sixty-eight guineas ? 

" 2. Luzerne, it must be remembered, was writing with an object, 
an interest. He had made, a long time before (' last year'), an advance 
('avance' is the French original) of the public money of France to 
Sullivan. He made no mention of it at the time to Vergennes. The 
object of his letter now is to get himself credited in account with it. 
Had he told Vergennes simply that he had made a loan to Sulli- 
van, he would have destroyed the object which he had in view. The 
answer would have been, ' Get it back from Sullivan.' Could he have 
said that the interests of France made it expedient to bribe a certain 



46 

person, and that lie had bribed him, his case would have been clear. 
But he does not say this. It looks as if the State of New Hamp- 
shire being tardy, Luzerne had made to Sullivan an 'advance' of his 
congressional pay, on private account, and expecting certainly that the 
State would soon put Sullivan in funds to repay it ; that the State not 
doing this immediately, or soon, Luzerne considered the loan in danger, 
and now profits by the revelation which Sullivan had made to him 
about British tentatives at bribery to inform Vergennes that it was 
desirable to keep well with Sullivan, and so now lays claim to bo 
refunded out of the public purse what he had advanced long before 
on an account purely private, and with an expectation of being cer- 
tainly and soon repaid. That Luzerne was repaid by France is not 
shown. 

"3. When Luzerne says that he advanced to Sullivan sixty-eight 
guineas, 'under the appearance of a loan,' he implies that he offered 
to lend the money, and that Sullivan took it promising to repay ; and 
he implies that not a word was said about bribe or gift. For had one 
such word been spoken, ' the appearance of a loan ' could not have 
existed. The appearance would have disappeared. Now, if Luzerne 
offered to lend the money, and if Sullivan took it promising to repay 
it, and if not a word more was said on either side, IVIr. Bancroft's 
round and positive charge is unjustified, and if unjustified is defama- 
tory. That which at the time of making it was both made and re- 
ceived as a loan may be called in one sense, an<l when the lender thinks 
he will never again see his money, an ' advance ' or even a gift ' under 
the appearance of a loan ; ' especially when by being called either the 
lender can make himself whole again out of the public purse. 

" 4. Had the money been given as a bribe, no mention of names 
would have been made as made in Luzerne's letter. Bribes are 
charged to the secret service fund ; a fund for the disposition of which 
no minister is expected to account, and where the name of the recip- 
ient would certainly not have been mentioned, the times and the agent 
having been the times and the agent of Louis XVI. ; the recipient 
being a major-general in the army of an ally, and a member of the 
Congress of a friendly nation. 

" When Luzerne says that he gave Sullivan sixty-eight guineas 
sons Vnjrparence d\m pret,' we understiuid him to mean, that, though 
Sullivan was in great pecuniary necessity, he, Luzerne, could not 
undertake to offer him money as a gift ; that Sullivan would have 
resented this, and therefore that he had offered to lend Sullivan money, 



47 

which money, «« a foan, Sullivan had accepted; though it is rather 
l)lain]y implied that Luzerne, who was writing six months after the 
loan was made, did not then ever expect to see his money again. But 
this don't prove that Sullivan betrayed his State for that money. 

" As for all the conversation and fears about Sullivan's going over 
to the British, it is not of any weight. The whole letter, after all, is 
but a report by a diplomat to his superior, of a conversation had six 
months before with a man who spoke a language not common to the 
two parties. The conversation bears conclusive marks of having come 
through the alembic of a vivacious Frenchman's memory, not to say, 
perhaps, in some degree of his imagination. For, though the conversa- 
tion was one six months old, Luzerne does not profess to give its 
substance, but all its very words in quoted form. It was wholly 
itnpossible for him to have done this, even supposing that he perfectly 
understood all that six months before Sullivan meant to say to him. 
Sullivan never saw the letter. He might have denied three-fourths 
or the whole of it. The country did not support the historian in his 
remarks about Greene and Schuyler. Neither will it, we think, in his 
charge that Sullivan betrayed New Hampshire for a few pieces of 



GENERAL JOHN SULLIVAN. 



At the annual meeting of the New Hampshire Historical 
Society, held in Concord on the ninth day of June, 1875, the 
committee appointed to inquire into the justice of certain 
allegations contained in the tenth volume of Bancroft's History 
of the United States concerning Major-General John Sullivan 
of New Hampshire, submitted the following report, which, 
being read, was accepted and adopted by the society. 

REPORT. 

The allegations of Mr. Bancroft are found in the tenth 
volume of his history, on page 452, where he says, " With the 
aid of Sullivan of New Hampshire, who w^as in the pay of 
France, instructions such as Vergennes might have drafted 
were first agreed upon ; " and on page 502, where these words 
are used : " That New Hampshire abandoned the claim to the 
fisheries was due to Sullivan, who at the time was a pensioner 
of Luzerne." 

This language imports nothing less than that General Sulli- 
van, then a delegate from New Hampshire in the Continental 
Congress, betrayed the interests of his State and country for a 
bribe from the agents of France. It is an accusation of the 
gravest character, brought now for the first time against a 
revolutionary patriot of conspicuous position and hitherto 
unsuspected purity, and in a work assuming to be of the 
highest authority. Every one of these considerations demands 
that, to justify such an arraignment, nothing less than complete, 
unimpeachable proof of its truth should be forthcoming. 



49 

Mr. Bancroft, upon the request of the descendants of General 
Sullivan, has produced the evidence on which he bases his 
assertion. It is a despatch from the Chevalier de la Luzerne, 
the French ambassador at Philadelphia, to the Count de Ver- 
gennes, the minister of Foreign Affairs of the King of France, 
and its meaning will be considered in another part of this 
report. 

But it is proper first to remark that the charge of Mr. Ban- 
croft derives no credibility from the action of General Sullivan 
in Congress, on the occasion alluded to in the two passages 
cited. 

The question, what terms should be insisted on by this 
country in making peace with Great Britain, was repeatedly 
before Congress, and received various decisions. But long 
before General Sullivan, after his military service, was returned 
as a delegate, it had been determined that the only indispensable 
condition was the recognition of our national independence. 
At the same time no American envoys, intrusted with the 
responsible duty of negotiating a treaty, could have been insen- 
sible to the importance of the questions of boundaries, the 
common right of fishery, and the navigation of the Mississippi, 
in which the various sections of our country were so vitally 
interested. 

As early as the beginning of 1781, France was weary of the 
war. She had engaged to- make no peace with Great Britain 
without the independence of America being secured, but she 
had not pledged herself to continue the contest for the purpose 
of gaining further advantages to her ally. She naturally 
wished that the instructions of Congress to our commissioners 
for negotiating a peace should contain no ultimatum except the 
recognition of our independence. Her ministers declared this 
to Congress in plain language, and there was no disposition 
among the most of the delegates to gainsay her wishes. The 
suspicions of the motives of France which prevailed afterwards 
among our commissioners abroad had not yet arisen here ; the 
country was animated by feelings of gratitude to our allies, and 
Congress reflected the sentiments of the country. It is easy, 

7 



50 

therefore, to account for the influence which the French min- 
ister exerted on that body, without resorting to tlie revolting 
suspicion of bribery. 

On the subjects of the fisheries, and of the instructions to 
our commissioners, a great majority of the delegates voted with 
Sullivan, — only three or four of the States dissenting. The 
vote of New Hampshire was not given by Sullivan alone ; he 
only shared the responsibility with his sole colleague, Mr. 
Livermore, a gentleman whose integrity, ability, and inde- 
pendence forbid the belief that he could have been influenced 
by Sullivan, wittingly or unwittingly, to be false to his trust. 

The reason which the majority assigned for their action was, 
that other restrictions upon our commissioners might have been 
fatal to the accomplishment of peace ; that the disposition of 
France was favorable to us ; and that the interests of our 
country being committed to John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, 
John Jay, Thomas Jetferson, and Henry Laurens, among the 
ablest of our patriots, familiar with the wants and hopes of the 
country, every attainable advantage would be secured. And 
the issue of the negotiations bore out their views. The com- 
missioners did obtain for us all that had been claimed in our 
days of greatest confidence. 

The fact, then, that General Sullivan acted with the majority 
in Congress in reference to the conditions of peace, affords no 
possible ground for the imputation that he was improperly 
influenced by agents of France. 

This leaves the charge of Mr. Bancroft to rest upon the 
authority of Luzerne's despatch alone. The following is a 
translation of that paper into English, only a few paragraphs 
relating to other subjects being omitted.* 



* Since this report was presented, a circular has been issued in the name of the pub- 
lishers of Mr. Bancroft, and presumably sanctioned by himself, in which the despatch of 
Luzerne is given, differing slightly (by reason of clerical errors, as we are informed) from 
the version before published. In printing the report, Mr. Bancroft's translation has been 
followed, as perhaps sufficiently correct for the present purpose, although it is not thought 
to convey the exact sense of the original in all particulars. 

[The copy of the Luzerne letter made by a copyist employed by Major Applcton of 
the Patent OfHce at Washington, from which the text in the Massachusetts Historical 



51 



Philadelphia, May 13, 1781. 

My Lord, — "When the letter-mail from Philadelphia was intercepted 
last yeai', and the English printed some of the letters, I noticed one 
from a Delegate who complained of tlie pecuniary straits in which he 
was kept by his State, and. the dearness of all the necessaries of life 
in Philadelphia. Of this I had the honor of sending you a translation. 
From that time it seemed necessary that I should open my purse for 
a Delegate whose needs were made known to the enemy by his own 
confession, and in the guise of a loan I sent him sixty-eight guineas 
and four-sevenths. The interception of a second mail put the English 
in possession of a letter addressed to him by the Treasurer of his State; 
and this also they printed. This, too, treated of pecuniary necessities.. 
General Clinton suspected that a man so pressed for money could be 
easily corrupted, and as his brother was a prisoner in New York, he 
permitted the latter to go to Philadelphia on the pretext of negotiating 
his exchange. The Delegate sought me, and told me in confidence 
tiiat his brother had brought him a letter, unsigned, but which he knew 
by the handwriting to have been written by an English colonel then in 
New York. " The writer of this letter," he said to me, " after dwelling 
on the resources of England, and the means which she possesses for 
ukimately subjugating America, compliments me warmly on my 
intelligence, my talents, and the high esteem in which the English hold 
me." He added, " that they regard me as the fittest man to negotiate 
a reconciliation between the mother country and the English colonies ; 
that they wish me to make known m,y sentiments on this subject ; that 
all overtures on my part will be received with the consideration which 
they deserve ; that I have only to state my wishes ; that the person 
who wrote to me was fully empowered to open a special negotiation 
with me, and that I may count upon the profoundest secrecy. 

" I made answer to my brother with all the indignation that such 
propositions aroused in me ; I threw the letter in the fire before his 
face, and when he started for New York I begged him to let those who 

Society's Proceedings was printed, reads as follows : " J'ignore combien de temps il doit 
encore rester dans le Congrfes, niais j'ai pens^ que vous ne desapproiiverez pas que je fisse 
I'offre de lui ai fait I'annde dernit're, aussi longteraps qu'il sera Delt'gu^, et ma proposition 
a eti5 tr^s bien accueillie." In a c^y printed by the publishers of the history the sentence 
reads, " J'ignore combien de terns il doit encore rester dans le Congres, mais j'ai pens^ 
que vous ne de&approuverez pas que je vous fisse I'offre de lui continuer, tous les six 
mois, le pr6t que je lui ai fait I'ann^e derniere, aussi longtems qu'il sera Delegu^, et ma 
proposition a ^te tr6s bien accueillie."] 



52 

sent him understanrl that their overtures had been receivefl with the 
deepest scorn. Yet I have preserved silence about this matter toward 
Congress, partly in order not to compromise my brother, partly in order 
not to make a parade of my own disinterestedness, and partly because 
I thought it hazardous to announce with too much positiveness to my 
colleagues that the enemy was seeking a: traitor among us, and that 
his reward was ready. But I thought I ought to confide to you these 
particulars, in order to put you on your guard against the enemy's 
intrigues, even in the very bosom of Congress ; for if they have dared 
to make such offers to me, whose attachment to the good cause is so 
generally known, it is only too possible that they have done the same 
to others who have not apprised you of it." 

This confidential communication seemed to me to be true, in the 
main ; but I was not quite convinced that this Delegate had charged 
his brother to carry to New York a message so haughty and so insulting 
to the P^nglish as that which he had repeated to me. He made me a 
very strange proposition, — to pretend to lend an ear to the overtures 
that had been made to him, and to send a trusty man to New York to 
ask of General Clinton a plan of reconciliation; adding that he had 
been unwilling to use his brother's services, fearing his attachment to 
the cause of independence. " I see," he told me, " many advantages 
in thus sounding the disposition of the English, in order to find out 
what their scheme of corruption may be, and to learn how far they 
intend to go in their concessions," — and he named to me four members 
of Congress to whom he proposed to confide his project before putting 
it into execution, — all of them being men of established integrity. 
This Delegate himself enjoys an excellent reputation, and I am very 
imwilling to suspect that he meant to make me a cloak for a corre- 
spondence with the enemy ; but he has so often told me of the losses 
that the Revolution has occasioned him, and so bitterly regretted his 
former condition of ease and comfort, that I could not help dreading 
for him. the temptation which he would encounter ; and I did not 
hesitate to dissuade him from the enterprise, by clearly pointing out 
the great evils that it would entail. lie did not promise me, formally, 
to abandon it ; but if, notwithstanding the representations which I 
intend to reiterate to him, he persists in it, I shall so narrowly watch 
his conduct that I shall hope to discover wliatever may be ambiguous 
in it. INIoreover, I have constantly encouraged him to be very confiding ; 
and to him I always attribute the rupture of the league formed by the 
Eastern States, — a league which, by false notions of popidarity and of 



53 

liberty, and by excessive jealousy of the army and the general-in-chief, 
has long obstructed the most necessary measures, and which on many 
occasions has shown itself jealous at once of our interests and of our 
influence. In his own State he is highly esteemed ; he enjoys the 
credit of determining it to declare for independence in 1776. It is the 
only State which has not yet fixed its form of government, and, since 
this delay has been productive of -evil, and permits ill-disposed persons 
still to hope for the re-establishment of the English government, he 
has promised me that, on his return, he will use his influence with the 
people to induce them to adopt a constitution. I know not how much 
longer he will remain in Congress ; but I thought you would not 
disapprove my offer to continue to him, every six months, the loan that 
I made him last year, so long as he shall remain a Delegate, and my 
proposition has been very gratefully received. In any event it is 
interesting to keep an eye on him. It is unfortunate that many other 
Delegates are in situations even still more necessitous. Some from 
the South, whose States are occupied by the enemy, have no other 
resources than the receipt of a bounty from Congress for their 
subsistence, and this bounty is so small that one of them, who was 
formerly governor of Georgia, is compelled to witbdi'aw his wife from 
society, for the want of clothing in which she could respectably 
appear. 

This attempt of the English gave me a chance to ask this Delegate 
whom they approached, if his long experience in Congress, and his 
colleagues' manner of voting, had led him to suspect any of them of 
corruption, lie indicated the person against whom I had formerly 
cherished suspicions, and another whose character seemed to him 
equally sispicious ; but with these two exceptions he thought that 
Congress was composed of gentlemen of steadfast character, and 
inaccessible to corrupt approach.^s. 

1 wi'l awiiir your orders, my Lord, to carry the advances spoken of 
in this despatch to my account of extraordinary expenses. 

I am, &c., &c., (signed) 

Le Ch. de la Luzerne. 

The Delegate spoken of at the beginning of this despatch, my Lord, 
is General Sullivan, who represents the State of New Hampshire iu 
Congress. 



54 

Plainly, the first thing to get at is the purpose of this mul- 
tifarious communication. It could not be to announce that 
General Sullivan had been " pensioned " by the writer, or 
received into " the pay of France." If that had been the 
meaning, what need of so much irrelevant matter ? Surely 
there was no occasion to beat about the bush in 'a private 
communication between the French envoy and his ofhcial chief. 
Luzerne had only to say, " For three hundred dollars I have 
bought, to do our bidding, a delegate in Congress, late a major- 
general in the army, and now a member of the })rincipal 
committees," — and the brevity of the epistle would have 
needed no apology, in consideration of the satisfactory nature 
of its contents ; that is, if it was any part of the policy of the 
French government to corrupt tiie leaders of their allies, 
which, both on account of the moral effect of the transaction 
if discovered or suspected, and because of its needlessncss 
in the state of public feeling then subsisting, may well be 
doubted. 

But it is clear that the despatch was not intended to convey 
that idea. Nowhere in it is there one word to indicate that 
General Sullivan had agreed, or was expected, to do more than 
his duty for France, or less than his duty for America. 

In our o])inion the despatch admits of one very simple and 
natural explanation, and of no other. Luzerne, generous in 
relieving the distresses of the American soldiery, had with like 
liberality opened his purse for the assistance of a distinguished 
delegate in Congress, whose needy condition was accidentally 
made j)ublic. Of course, he expected to be reimbursed in a 
reasonable time. But months had gone on, and such was the 
scarcity of money that General Sullivan was unable, either from 
his property at home, from the continental treasury which was 
considerably indebted to him, or from his State, which was 
entirely in arrear with his salary, to obtain the means to repay 
the advance. Luzerne had reason to believe that France 
would scruple to assume no reasonable expenditures made 
for the benefit of the United States, if only the occasion was 
of sufhcient consequence to warrant them. His despatch was 



55 

obviously written, therefore, to induce the French government 
to allow him to charge to the public account the money which 
he had lent to General Sullivan, not because it had been 
applied for purposes of corruption, but simply because he feared 
that otherwise he should be compelled to lose it from his own 
pocket. 

Hence the burden of his letter is, that Sullivan, in his known 
destitute condition, was in danger of being suborned by the 
British. To heighten the effect of the. suggestion, he intro- 
duces the statement from Sullivan of approaches which had 
already been made him from an English officer in New York, 
which statement, by the way, heard through the medium of 
a foreign tongue, and reproduced in the French manner, will 
hardly' be taken as literally exact. The acute Frenchman 
would readily discern that his claim to be reimbursed from 
the treasury of his king would be all the more ])lausible, if an 
expectation of that kind had been entertained from the start. 
This would account for the adroit manner in which he describes 
his advance to Sullivan as made " in the guise of a loan," and 
mentions that he had made to him " the offer to continue every 
six months the loan that he made him last year, so long as he 
should remain a delegate, which proposition was very gratefully 
received." All this was excellently calculated to persuade 
Luzerne's superiors to direct the money advanced to Sullivan 
to be included with the other manifold payments which Franco 
was daily making on account of her American allies, and there 
seems to be no other purpose for which the letter could have 
been reasonably designed. It is in accordance with this view 
of the matter too, that Luzerne nowhere states that Sullivan 
understood that the money which he received, or which was 
subsequently offered him, was other than the private property 
of Luzerne, and to be repaid to him as such ; nor that Sullivan 
knew that it was sought to be charged to the public account, or 
that the transaction was disclosed to Vergennes or to any other 
person. And it is proper to add that it is not pretended that 
any further advance was ever made ; that no evidence has 
appeared that the one in question was actually defrayed from 



56 

the French treasury ; and nothing to show that it was not 
subsequently repaid to Luzerne by Sullivan.* 

If the despatch contains even a reasonable implication that 
General Sullivan received or retained as a bribe the money he 
had from Luzerne, your committee are unable to perceive it, 
and it must be of too indirect and vague a character to justify 
the odious charge of venality. 

Perhaps this subject ought not to be dismissed without an 
allusion to the character of the persons inculpated by Mr. 
Bancroft's assertions. 

M. de la Luzerne has uniformly borne the character of a man 
of honor. When Benedict Arnold, some months before the 
time in question, went to him with a proposal to sell himself 
to the service of the French king, Luzerne, while uttering a 
courteous refusal, did not disguise the feeling of aversion he 
entertained for such a transaction. His conduct while an 
envoy to this country was such as to call forth from Congress 

* In the Circular alluded to in the former note, it appears for the first time that the 
Cabinet of Versailles made a reply to the despatch of Luzerne. Mr. Bancroft, when 
applied to bj' the descendants of General Sullivan for the ijrounds of his statement 
respecting their ancestor, wrote (see Circular, pp. 2, 3), " My authority for this statement 
was a circumstantial report made to Vergennes by Luzerne himself." He did not hint 
at a reply to that report; nor, we are assured, did he lay before the copyist em{>loye(I by 
Sullivan's descendants to transcribe his "authority," the reply, or any part of it. Why 
he kept it back, if he considered it of any importance, every one must form his own 
opinion. The Circular gives the following extract from the reply : — 

From the Cabinet of' Versailles to M. de la Luzerne. 
{Extract.) 27 Jnly, 1781. 

I cannot but approve. Monsieur, the pecuniary assistance you have rendered to 
General Sullivan. You may continue it to him as long as he shall sit in Congress, and 
you will carry the amount to the account of your extraordinary' expenses, avoiding the 
mention of his name. 

This " extract " simply indicates that Luzerne had leave to charge the loan already 
made to the public account, and to make General Sullivan further specified advances ou 
the same account. But it nowhere appears that Luaerue was in fact uuder the necessity 
of resorting to the French treasury for reimbursement of the loan, — while the expiration 
of General Sullivan's term of service in Congress, and his return to New Hampshire, 
preclude the idea of his receiving any further advance. But the really important thing 
of all is, that there is no syllable of evidence in the despatch or the reply that Sullivan 
ever knew or suspected that the fact of the loan from Luzerne was made known to 
Vergennes, or that such a thing as transferring it to the French treasury was ever 
thought of. So far as Sullivan is concerned, the correspondence between the Frenchmen 
was absolutely ret inter alios acta. 



57 

flattering expressions of esteem after the peace, and from 
Washington, through Jefferson as Secretary of State, a hand- 
some acknowledgment of his services, in behalf of the nation 
after the organization of the Federal Government. The French 
minister could hardly have been guilty of corrupting prominent 
members of Congress without some whisper of the fact being 
borne to the ears of at least the Commander-in-Chief and first 
President ; and we cannot imagine our Washington directing 
a laudatory message to an ambassador who lay under the 
faintest suspicion of so abusing his high trust. 

General Sullivan had faults, no doubt, but they were the 
farthest from falsehood and venality. History has never 
assailed his probity, and tradition, which in his native State 
has handed down his .characteristics with apparent fidelity, 
uniformly represents him as of scrupulous integrity. His 
fellow-citizens, who ought to have judged him correctly, loaded 
him with offices of high trust after the war ; and Washington, 
who knew and chided * his real failings, had so implicit a 
reliance on his honor and uprightness, that he appointed him 
to the position of United States judge for the District of New 
Hampshire, which he held till his death. 

A circumstance which occurred in the early part of 1781, a 
few months after Luzerne made the loan to Sullivan, ought 
to have a strong bearing on the question under consideration. 
The Pennsylvania troops had revolted, and were in a state 
of insurrection, and Sullivan was appointed chairman of a 
committee of Congress to bring them back to their allegiance. 
The British genei-al, hearing of the mutiny, despatched mes- 
sengers to the troops to entice them to desei't to the royal 
standard ; but the Pennsylvanians, true to their country even 



* [The only instances in which Washington ever said Tvhat could " be construed as 
censure or disparagement of Sullivan are believed to be in his letter in July, 1776, when he 
imputes to him a "little vanity," implying an overweening faith in his own resources, 
at the same time giving him credit for numerous other invaluable qualities for the 
sers-ice; and again, three years later, when on vindicating himself to Congress from 
what he considered an implied reflection for not furnishing more men and supplies for 
the Indian campaign, he intimates rather than states that, in the exhausted condition of 
the country, to ask for more was to be unreasonably exacting.] 



58 

when tliej believed she had wronged them, voluntarily turned 
over the emissaries to the committee of Congress to be dealt 
with as spies. Sullivan wrote an account of the matter to 
Luzerne in these words : — 

" One circumstance ought not to be omitted, which, in 
my judgment, does the insurgents much honor. When they 
delivered up the British emissaries. Governor Reed offered 
them one hundred golden guineas, which they refused, saying 
that what they did was only a duty they owed to their country, 
and that they neither wanted nor would receive any reward 
but the approbation of that country for which they had so often 
fought and bled." 

It is absolutely incredible that a man in the position of 
Sullivan, if he had just been receiving the wages of iniquity 
for being faithless to his country, could address such language 
to his partner in the dishonor. 

Jolm Sullivan has now lain in an honored grave for the 
greater part of a century, every year of which furnishes an 
additional presumption against the truth of an accusation 
which no man ventured to make to his living face. If we are 
now called upon to credit the utterly improbable story that he 
bartered his honor and his country for a paltry sum of money, 
it can only be on evidence unmistakable, abundant, and 
conclusive. 

In the judgment of your Committee, the allegations of Mr. 
Bancroft impugning the integrity of General Sullivan are 
unsupported by the evidence, and are unworthy of credence ; 
and justice to the memory of General Sullivan, to say nothing 
of a regard for his own accuracy and fairness as a historian, 
calls u{)on Mr. Bancroft to retract the offensive charge without 
delay. 

chari.es ii. bell, 
w. h. y. hackett, 
j. everett sargent, 

N. BOUTON, 
J. B. WALKER, 
JOHN ELWYN. 

[The two foot-notes m brackets are not part of the report.] 



ERRORS OF THE COPYIST CORRECTED. 



In a communication to the " Daily Advertiser" of Boston, 
on last Thursday, Oct. 12, 1875, we were charged with circu- 
lating an imperfect and garbled translation of the Luzerne 
letter. We have circulated no other translation of the letter than 
that printed in the " Proceedings of the Massachusetts Histoi'ical 
Society;" making, for reasons stated in the foot-note, page 25, 
but one solitary alteration, in rendering en ajoutant " in adding " 
instead of " adding." Such a charge seems especially provoking 
as we had taken every precaution to guard against the unfair 
imputations we had reason to expect from the calumniator of 
General Sullivan, by placing the copy of the letter procured by 
our copyist in Washington, and its translation, in the keeping 
of the Massachusetts Historical Society, whose publishing com- 
mittee, with zealous care that the translation should be an 
exact rendering of the original, printed them both in their 
Proceedings. 

Early in May we published a vindication, entitled " General 
Sullivan not a Pensioner of Luzerne," and, with it, printed from 
the electrotype plates of the Society the letter and translation ; 
and this we circulated as extensively as our means permitted, 
in order that our countrymen might judge for themselves if the 
aspersion cast upon one who was prominent in our great national 
epoch was justified. In July appeared a circular of the pub- 
lishers, spread broadcast over the land, stating that the phrase 
alluded to below had .been omitted by the copyist, and contain- 
ing an answer from Vergennes to Luzerne not submitted to 
him when employed to copy whatever evidence the historian 
possessed to justify his statement. At the time when the cir- 
cular first came to our knowledge, a committee of the New 
Hampshire Historical Society had the subject under considera- 



60 

tion ; and, as they proposed to make the translation in the 
circular the basis of their report, and that report was promised 
at an early day in print, there seemed no occasion for us to 
occupy public attention with the subject again before their 
report was published. We knew very well that the passage 
inadvertently omitted by our copyist, if in the copy of the letter 
submitted to him in Washington, could be no additional proof 
of what was utterly untrue, — of a mere chimera of the distorted 
imagination of the historian; but, if thought otherwise, the cir- 
cular had informed the public that the line had been omitted. 
The members of the committee of the New Hampshire Histori- 
cal Society, living at considerable distandbs apart, their report 
was not in print before September. It contains the translation 
of the Luzerne letter in the circular of the publishers, or so 
much of it as had any bearing upon the. questions involved. It 
was at once placed in the hands of the printers, and will be 
found at page 51 of this publication. 

Since our reply to the communication in the " Advertiser " 
our attention has been called, for the first time, to a fly-leaf 
attached to the " Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society," stating that our copyist had made two other errors, 
— one in writing " bonte " instead of "louche," the other 
" moteur " instead of " manteau." These errors, which no 
malice will venture to charge as intentional, are set right in 
the translation of the circular, made part of the report of the 
New Hampshire Historical Society, and under the circumstances 
did not justify, from their significance, any such uncourteous 
attack upon ourselves as that in the " Advertiser." If not the 
historian himself, " C." must be one very like him, or he would 
have refrained from an imputation he knew without foundation 
against us, who, in the discharge of a sacred duty, have been 
scrupulously just ;. and also forbearing in seeking redress from 
public opinion. 

In the publishers' circular, the word " vous " precedes 
"fisse," and explains the comment made in our reply to the 
communication in the " Advertiser," printed below. It is 
omitted in the fly-leaf alluded to, of which we knew nothing 



61 

when we made our reply. We publish that reply here as part 
of the history of our vindication. We should also state that 
the report of Congress recommending that General Sullivan 
should be paid fifteen hundred dollars in gold, for money ad- 
vanced by him to the public service, was made July 20, 1781. 
It was inconvenient for Mr. Morris to pay more than two 
hundred dollars, and more convenient for General Sullivan to 
have the balance paid him at home. This balance was not 
paid, as will be seen by a letter addressed by him to the New 
Hampshire Committee of Safety, May 11, 1782, for some time 
after. The copy of this letter, sent from Concord, bears date, 
obviously by mistake, 1784. 

As the report was made to Congress two months after 
the Luzerne letter was written, and he left Philadelphia for 
home in August, before the answer of Vergennes could have 
been received, there seems no reason to believe any second loan 
was made, but much that the first was then repaid. We would 
further urge, that the proposition to make him in the future 
otber loans than that accepted, having every appearance on the 
part of Luzerne of a generous wish to befriend him in his 
straits, it would have been churlish not to have received it 
with grateful acknowledgment. With these words of expla- 
nation, we append our reply to the communication in the 
" Daily Advertiser : " — 

As we are the only male descendants of General Sullivan in New 
England, we feel called upon to deny unequivocally the statement of 
your correspondent, C, that we have published any incomplete or 
garbled translation of the Luzerne letter. When the charge maligning 
General Sullivan appeared, we wrote demanding the authority on which 
it was made; and in answer to our second application we were informed 
that, if we sent a copyist to his house in Washington, a copy could be 
had. Unable to go on to Washington, and naturally indisposed to have 
any personal interview with the calumniator of one whose memory is 
dear to us from the part he took in the struggle for American independ- 
ence, as for much else, we requested our friend Major Appleton, of the 
Patent Office, to send a competent person to copy the letter of Luzerne 
to Vergennes, which was the only authority mentioned or pretended. 



62 

The copy thus made was, a few days after its arrival here, presented 
to the Massachusetts Historical Society ; and that copy, with a trans- 
lation, approved by their publishing committee, was printed for their 
Proceedings. The copy so sent on to us is now open to inspection ; 
and any one can see at a glance that it has not been altered a word or 
a comma, except in printing the word " Je " instead of " de," The 
passage in which this occurs in the copy sent and printed by the Society 
reads : " J'ignore combien de tems il doit encore rester daus le Congres, 
mais j'ai pense que vous ne d^sapprouverez pas que je fisse I'offre de 
lui ai fait I'annee derniere." A version printed some time after by the 
booksellers of the author has, after lui, the words " continuer tous les 
six mois le pret que je lui." If these words were in the paper submitted, 
they must have been inadvertently omitted by him. He was an entire 
stranger to us ; he had no communication with any one but Major 
Appleton ; and they are not material to the question, as the loan was 
not repeated. Such version would signify that the offer or proposition 
to repeat the loan every six months of about three hundred dollars, so 
long as General Sullivan remained in Congress, was made to Vergennes, 
and not to him. Before any answer could come from Vergennes, his 
congressional term had expired. He had expended all his resources in 
the public service. Government had no means to pay even the advances 
made by him in the war. They were voted to him in Septetnber, as 
he was going home to resume his profession to support his distressed 
family. But only two hundred dollars was available to pay him, and 
the rest he received in a draft on New Hampshire, not paid till a long 
time afterwards. 

The New Hampshire Historical Society, by an able committee, of 
which their president was chairman, have thoroughly investigated the 
imputation made upon the honor of General Sullivan ; and we appeal 
to the candor of our countrymen, whether to persist in such a charge 
when decided groundless by a tribunal not to be questioned for its ability 
or impartiality, doe-^ not show a malignant spirit. General Sullivan 
was far from home, without bread, in the public service. The govern- 
ment owed him five thousand dollars, of which two hundred alone were 
realized for several years. Under such circumstances, for him to receive 
a loan not sought by himself, but proffered by Luzerne, was his right, 
and perfectly honorable. To pretend that his argument in Congress 
against coupling the fisheries with national independence as conditions 
of negotiation were influenced by the loan, is an inference not supported 
by the slightest evidence of probability, and is inherently absurd ; and 



63 

to seek to defame any person, especially one who made as great sacri- 
fices for his country as General Sullivan, indicates a spirit which we 
regard with surprise and indignation. 

The charge made by your correspondent is, that we have published 
a garbled translation of the Luzerne letter. The letter in the original 
sent by our copyist was printed by the publishing committee of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, except as above mentioned, precisely 
as received, with a translation also approved by the committee. The 
report of the Historical Society of New Hampshire will be in a few 
days within the reach of any one disposed to examine for himself, 
attached to the vindication of General Sullivan already published. 

After the issue last spring of that vindication appeared tlie circular 
of the bookseller of the historian, with the words omitted in the copy 
by our copyist, which then, with the reply of Vergennes of July 27, 
were first brought to our notice. The New Hampshire society have 
made the letter, as printed in that circular, part of their report, and the 
ground for their conclusion that the cliarge against General Sullivan 
was entirely unsustained by the evidence offered, and ought to be 
retracted. 

If asked why General Sullivan did not communicate the overture of 

Sir Henry Clinton to his own government, there is no evidence that 

he did not, and much reasonable probability that he did. But such 

overtures were nothing new. Wlioever is familiar with the history of 

that period will find numerous attempts to corrupt members of Congress 

and other prominent leaders, equally bold and plausible. We think we 

may safely appeal to Dr. Ellis for our faith, that the passage containing 

the words quoted in the circular of the publishers, and now by your 

correspondent, had no reference whatever to General Sullivan. We 

should be glad, as interest in the untarnished reputation of every general 

officer of our great historical epocli is not confined to any one locality, 

that publishers of the periodical press throughout the country should 

copy this into their pages. 

John Sullivan. 

Edward SullivAn. 

Letter of General Sullivan to Committee of Safety of New Hampshire. 

Ddeham, May 11, 1782. 
Gentlejien, — I do myself the honor to inclose you a letter from 
Mr. Morris, Minister of France, in answer to my letter to him of the 
1st of April. 



64 

When I was at the Congress, last winter, I obtained an order from 
Congress on the financier for fifteen hundred dollars, fourteen hundred 
of which was for cash advanced by me in 1776, and for which I have 
had no interest. Mr. Morris paid me two hundred dollars, and gave 
me an order on General Whipple, the treasurer of New Hampshire, for 
thirteen hundred dollars, which I then preferred to receiving the money 
in Philadelphia. The general at first gave me some encouragement, 
but, at the March Superior Court, informed me that his prospects had 
vanished, of which I informed Mr. Morris by my letter of the 1st of 
April, which produced the letter inclosed. The design of laying his 
letter before the committee is to get information whether my money is 
likely to be in the treasury soon, or is now there, to satisfy the demand, 
that I may, in case of no prospect of relief appearing, make a second 
application to Congress. 

Your Honors must be sensible that the loss of interest on this sum 
for eight years, and the present disappointment, must be exceedingly 
hard upon one who has suffered as many losses in the public service as 
I have. I am therefoi-e fully convinced that it would be the wish of 
every member of your honorable committee to discharge this demand, 
if the state of the public funds would admit. I therefore beg it may 
be contrived if possible; and, if not, that I may be favored with a letter 
in answer to this request. 



OTHER CONSIDERATIONS. 



Up to July 27, 1781, the date of the reply of Vergennes to 
Luzerne, the salaries and incidental expenses of our foreign 
ministers were paid from the French treasury, and charged to 
the loans and subsidies of Prance to the United States. Much 
correspondence exists between the ministers on the subject. 
A few days after the reply of Vergennes, Dr. Franklin wrote 
Mr. Adams : " It is right to acquaint you that I do not think 
we can depend on receiving any more money here applicable 
to the support of the Congress ministers. What aids are 
granted will be transmitted directly to America." Not long 
after, official intimation was given by the French cabinet to 
Congress that this change had been determined upon. The 
fact seems significant. It is not our intention to follow the 
bad example of straining inference into argument or evidence ; 
but it seems difficult to believe that Vergennes, if engaged 
with Luzerne in corrupting Congress, would have been likely 
to attract the attention of public men of America at home and 
abroad to his conduct, by a procedure peculiarly calculated to 
create disappointment, provoke discussion, and quicken scru- 
tiny to discover the reasons that prompted him. The relief 
extended to General Sullivan in his straits needed no conceal- 
ment on his part, could hardly have escaped observation, and 
Vergennes would have been cautious not to select that moment 
for withdrawing from the ministers this great privilege of re- 
ceiving their salaries and incidental expenses in Europe, if he 
had been guilty as alleged. It seems much more natural that 
this new call upon the generosity of France to relieve the needs 
of members of Congress from its public treasury created alarm, 
and led to the course adopted. 

6 



66 

It may be interesting to know how far intercourse with our 
allies in the war of independence was facilitated by familiarity 
on the part of our general officers and other leading men 
with their language. Our representatives abroad naturally 
and necessarily acquired it. And with so many officers in the 
French service in America or in our own armies who spoke 
English imperfectly or not at all, knowledge of French was an 
important accomplishment for their commanders to possess. 
Many of our generals had enjoyed better opportunities for ac- 
quiring and speaking it than General Sullivan ; but his father, 
to wliom he owed his education, had been brought up on the 
continent of Europe, and undoubtedly, in his earlier years, knew 
it well. The following letter is presented to show that it formed 
part of General Sullivan's early course of instruction, as he 
was not likely to have attained the facility of writing it without 
mistake whilst in the army or in Congress. 

The letter will serve another purpose, inasmuch as Marbois, 
to whom it is addressed, was at the time Secretary of Lega- 
tion to Luzerne ; and not only so, but was, besides, the princi- 
pal agent in the most important operations in the embassy, 
succeeding to its charge when Luzerne went home, in 1784. 
Besides an essay on Morality, he published, in 1816, the well- 
known work, " Complot d'Arnold et de Sir Henry Clinton 
contre les Etats-Unis d'Am(?rique et centre le General Wash- 
ington." Had any such transaction as that alleged taken place, 
it neitlier would nor could have been concealed from him. The 
career of Marbois was without reproach ; that he was a man 
of honor and integrity is a reasonable presumption. He must 
have been devoid of them if wliat is alleged were true, and 
known to bo so to him, and he still represented Luzerne in his 
book as entertaining and expressing the noble sentiments at- 
tributed to him in rejecting the proposal of Arnold to be of 
use to France if his debts were paid. There still survived, 
when the work was published, persons who would have known 
if any attempt had ever been made by Luzerne to corrupt 
members of the American Congress, and Marbois would never 
have thought of representing Luzerne, if guilty of such courses, 
as denouncing the corruption he practised. 



67 

Philadelphie, le 12 d'avril 1781. 

Monsieur, — J'ai lu hier au soir la lettre qui a ete publiee par 
Mr. Rivington sous le nom du General Washington. Je ne crois pas 
qu'elle a ete ecrite par son Excellence ; mais si elle I'a ete, il n'y a 
rien qui puisse donner la moindre inquietude aux commandans de 
I'armee et d'escadre du Roi. 11 y a dit qu'il etoit tres malheureux 
que toute I'escadre fran9oise ne soit pas sorti d'abord avec les troupes 
de terre, au lieu d'un vaisseau de ligne et deux fregates, comme il 
I'avoit propose, parce que si cela etoit fait dans ce tems la, qu'il falloit 
que Mr. Arnold avec son armee ait ete prise, mais que cette petit 
[sic] flotte ne pouvait rien faire sans les troupes de terre. II arrive 
journellement, monsieur, que les plus grands militaires pensent bien 
differemment sur le meme objet, et la reussite n'est pas toujours la 
meilleure preuve de la sagesse de leurs mesures ; neanraoins le monde 
en general forme son jugement selon les evenemens. 

Je crois que le gent^ral a mentionne cette affaire, mais non pas, avec 
les memes expressions qui sont publiees dans la Gazette Royale. Je 
suis surpris que Mr. Rivington n'y ait pas ajoute davantage. II a 
public dans une autre gazette une lettre du general au congres, dans 
laquelle il lui demande la permission de se retirer du service des Etats 
Unis. II a publie aussi la reponse du congres a cette lettre, dont ni 
I'une ni I'autre n'ont jamais existe. Si Mr. Rivington pouvoit forger 
une lettre et une reponse tout eutier, il ne devoit point trouver beaucoup 
des difficultes d'ajouter a celle du General Washington tout ce qu'il lui 
etoit agreable. 

J'ai I'honneur d'etre, avec la plus parfaite estime, votre tres humble 
et tres obeissant serviteur, 

John Sullivan. 

It seems hardly necessary to append any translation of the 
foregoing letter, as the object of inserting it is simply to show 
that General Sullivan had a good knowledge of the French 
language, constituting, among others, one of his claims to con- 
sideration and welcome at the French legation. The contents 
of the letter have no official bearing upon the subject of this 
present publication, except that it was written but a few weeks 
before that of Luzerne to Vergennes, on which the charge rests. 
It was indirectly in answer to an inquiry by Marbois as to the 
genuineness of a letter in the gazette attributed to Washing- 



68 

ton. The following is believed to be an exact rendering of the 
original : — 

Philadelphia, 12 April, 1781. 

Sir, — I read, yesterday evening, the letter which has been published 
by Mr. Rivington under the name of General Washington. I do not 
believe it has been written by his Excellency ; but, should it have been, 
there is nothing in it which should give the slightest uneasiness to the 
commanders of the army or of the fleet of the king. It says that it 
was unfortunate that the whole of the French fleet had not gone with 
the land force instead of a single ship of the line and two frigates, as 
he had proposed, because if that had been the case Mr. Arnold,* with 
his army, must have been taken ; but his small fleet could do nothing 
without land troops. It happens every day, sir, that the greatest 
soldiers think very differently upon the same subject, and the result 
(the siiccess) is not always the best pi'oof of the wisdom of their 
measures. Nevertheless, the world in general forms its judgment 
according to the event. 

I believe the general has mentioned this affair, but not with the 
same expressions which are published in the " Royal Gazette." I am 
surprised that Mr. Rivington had not added more. He has published 
in another gazette a letter from the general to Congress, in which he 
asks permission to withdraw from the service of the United States. 
He has published also the reply of Congress to this letter, neither of 
which have ever existed. If Mr. Rivington could forge a letter and 
answer, he ought to find little ditficulty in adding to that of General 
"Washington all tliat was agreeable to him. 

I have the honor to be, with the most perfect esteem, your very 
humble and obedient servant, 

John Sullivan. 
A. M. M DE Marbois. 

Another letter, somewhat later, from General Knox, informing 
him of the arrival of Moutiers, the new French Minister, in 1788, 
indicates the place General Sullivan held in his esteem and 
that of Lafayette. This is selected not that numerous others are 
not at hand to show unabated respect and confidence, hut that 
Lafayette, who was the soul of honor, and must have known if 
General Sullivan had ever been in the pay of France or Luzerne 

* Arnold was then devastating in Virginia. 



69 

and swerved in consequence from his duty, would hardly have 
come to the conclusion he was President of Congress at that 
time if he had any such impression of him. He was the chief 
magistrate of New Hampshire, had been before, and was again 
chosen the next year, and to his efforts and arguments has 
generally been ascribed the ratification of the Federal Constitu- 
tion by that State, being the ninth, and the one that decided 
its adoption : — 

[Private.] New York, 19 January, 1788. 

My dear Sir, — The new Minister of France, the Count de 
Moutiers, who arrived yesterday, brought the inclosed letter from our 
common friend the Marquis de Lafayette. It is addressed to you, on 
the supposition of your being in this city and President of Congress. 
But, alas, there is no Congress, although two months have elapsed 
since one ought to have been assembled, agreeably to the Confederation. 
The new Constitution ! the new Constitution ! is the general cry this 
way. Much paper is spoiled on the subject, and many essays written, 
which perhaps are not read by either side. It is a stubborn fact that 
the present system, called the Confederation, has run down ; that the 
springs, if ever it had others than the late army, have utterly lost their 
tone, and the mashine cannot be wound up again ; and that something 
must be done speedily, or we shall soon be involved in all the horrors 
of anarchy and separate State interests. This, indeed, appears to have 
been the serious judgment of all the States who have formally consid- 
ered the new Constitution, and therefore have adopted it, not as a 
perfect system, but as the best that could be obtained under existing 
circumstances. 

If to those States which have already received it Massachusetts and 
New Hampshire should be added, a doubt could not be entertained but 
that it will be received generally in the course of the present year. If 
Massachusetts and New Hampshire reject it, we shall have to encounter 
a boisterous and uncertain ocean of events. 

Should you have leisure, I shall be much obliged for a confidential 
information of the disposition of New Hampshire on the subject. And 
you may rest assured that your confidence shall not be misplaced. 

I am, my dear sir, with great respect and affection, your most obe- 
dient and humble servant, 

H. Knox. 
His Excellency Joiix Sullivan, Esq. 



c „ 



SUMMARY. 



In this appeal to the pubhc in vindication from undeserved 
reproach of a memory it is our duty to guard, sustained as we 
are by the New Hampshire Historical Society and many officers 
and members of other societies, and individuals in great number 
whose special historical pursuits render them quite as competent 
to weigh the evidence offered as Mr. Bancroft, we feel entire 
confidence that all unprejudiced and candid minds will concur 
in the following conckisions : — 

That General Sullivan, having expended all his available 
resources in the service of his country, and without means to 
pay his daily expenses, could, with perfect propriety, accept a 
loan of about three hundred dollars, voluntarily offered from 
M. Luzerne as from any other friend, especially as he had 
reason to expect the government would soon place him in funds, 
as they actually did, to repay it, in reimbursement to him of 
advances he had made in the public service. That it was what 
any sensible man would have done, under like circumstances, 
when in need. 

That his argument and vote against coupling the fisheries 
with independence in the ultimatum, when they were already 
sufficiently provided for by the instructions, were the part of 
wisdom and true patriotism ; and the motives of such men as 
John Jay and the other members of the majority who defeated 
tlie proposed amendment might as well be impugned as General 
Sullivan's. 

That Luzerne, in the depressed condition of affairs before the 
surrender of Cornwallis, might well be in doubt of recovering 
the loan, and wish his government should assume it. That 
the only pretext that could warrant the shifting of the debt 



71 

from himself to the treasury was that it was for public objects. 
This wish may have colored his statement of the case ; but that 
he had no reason to doubt the integrity of General Sullivan 
is as distinctly asserted. All wars are uncertain in their issue. 
Reverses might have set at naught the hope of independence, 
left France to fight the battle alone, or make peace under 
circumstances to her disadvantage. It was Luzerne's duty to 
keep informed of the disposition of all public men in Philadel- 
phia ; and his assurance to Vergennes that he should be vigilant 
in watching the course of the attempt of Sir Henry Clinton to 
obtain General Sullivan's assistance in restoring the colonies to 
the British crown, may have been incumbent upon the minister ; 
but no one who knew that from the outbreak of the war 
General Sullivan had been uniformly opposed to reconciliation, 
and had never swerved from any obligation, would think less 
of him from this expression. 

That, considering the position occupied by him in the army, 
and especially from his having been selected to co-operate with 
D'Estaing in 1778, the unvarying affection manifested towards 
him by Lafayette, by Washington and Greene, his frequent 
acts of kindness and loans to French officers in distress, it was 
natural that the king, cabinet, and Vergennes should have 
gladly expressed their willingness to relieve his necessities 
without expecting any unworthy return, and that the caution 
not to mention his name was precisely what would naturally 
have suggested itself to any gentleman, as delicate and 
proper. 

That there is every reason to believe that the loan was 
repaid, — Sullivan had property and money due him from 
various persons, which he refrained from calling in lest it 
should distress them ; but the fifteen hundred dollars in 
gold voted him by Congress, before Yergennes's assent to 
Luzerne's proposition to charge the loan to his extraordinary 
expenses arrived, enabled him to do so, and there is every rea- 
son to believe he paid it then, if not already paid from his other 
resources. His being without means up to May 13, the date 
of Luzerne's letter, is no proof that he may not have had 



72 

remittances from home in June. But, whether paid or not, — 
and the burden of proof that it was not is on the cahimniator, 
— when it was made, the evidence is explicit that it was offered 
as a loan and accepted as a loan, and there is no proof or 
likelihood that any second loan was made. 

That there is not the slightest intimation in the letter, direct 
or indirect, that the loan was made upon any agreement, prom- 
ise, understanding, expectation, or encouragement that in con- 
sequence, or in consideration thereof. General Sullivan would 
render any service whatsoever to France or its minister ; that 
no other evidence is offered or pretended of any such obligation 
being assumed ; that the whole tenor of the letter is inconsistent 
with any such supposition ; and that the allegation, made with- 
out proof, evidence, or possibility, is simply an invention of the 
maligner. 

That we have done our best to procure an exact copy of the 
Luzerne letter, and a fair rendering of it into English, and, 
in order to protect ourselves from ungenerous or dishonest 
imputation, placed them in the keeping of the Massachusetts 
Historical Society, that they might be printed under their 
supervision. For the three mistakes made by the copyist — 
"bonte" for "louche," "moteur" for " manteau," and line 
omitted between the two words, " lui," which commenced two 
successive lines — we are not responsible. He was a stranger 
to us. The circular of the publishers, widely distributed, cor- 
rected them. The New Hampshire Historical Society adopted 
the translation of the circular as the basis of their report in 
which it was incorporated, and which was immediately prom- 
ised in print. We have used all diligence to expedite this 
present publication, which contains it. We find the electrotype 
plates of the letter and translation from which they have been 
struck off for this publication remain as originally printed ; and 
it is best that they should be reprinted as they stand, as the 
corrections are made apparent in the notes and context, so as 
not to mislead, and, thus placed, explain more intelligibly the 
course we have pursued to obtain the pretended evidence of 
the charge, and bring it to public notice. 



73 

That rodomontade and display of irrelevant learning is ont 
of place in historical works; while fidelity to trnth. freedom from 
prejudice, thoroughness of treatment, are indispensable to their 
claim to confidence. The works of the calumniator are too well 
known not to be soon superseded by some other more reliable, 
and the present instance, it is to be hoped, will place future 
writers on their guard against mistake, lead them to examine 
the original records and correspondence before accepting ac- 
counts of the military services of General Sullivan which can 
be proved, in nearly every circumstance related, to be errone- 
ously stated in the work of the calumniator. 

That, having waited patiently, without menace or solicita- 
tion, for this charge, pronounced by a competent tribunal to be 
unsustained, to be publicly withdrawn, — the amends to which 
we feel ourselves entitled, — and the assailant not having tlie 
magnanimity to do so, we shall be borne out in saying that 
this unscrupulous attempt to vilify the dead and wound the 
just sensibility of the living without the sliglitest proof, evi- 
dence, or probability, is an outrage of which no man could be 
guilty unless devoid of moral sense. His age and our respect 
for the public peace may protect him from personal resentment ; 
but we should have little faith in the integrity or love of justice 
of our countrymen, if they are not of a mind, that a writer, who 
sets so little value upon character as to attempt to tarnish it 
by strained and malicious inferences from so simple a transac- 
tion as a friendly loan to an officer of the Revolution when in 
need, deserves their execration as a falsifier of history. 



Price 25 Cents, 



GENERAL SULLIVAN 

NOT A 

PENSIONER OF LUZEENE 

(Minister of France at Philadelphia, 1778-1783). 



With the Report of the New Hampshire Historical 

Society, vindicating him from the charge 

MADE BY George Bancroft. 



SECOND EDITION. 



BOSTON: 

A. WILLIAMS AND COMPANY, 

283 Washington Street. 
1875. 










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